Members of Leeds Festival Chorus are pictured in Leeds Town Hall not long before the announcement that it was closing for a major refurbishment, which came as particularly stark news for them, because the Chorus was first formed in 1858 to mark its official opening.
Like other musical users, it has had to find other venues for its concerts, including the one usually scheduled for the weeks before Christmas, which this year takes place on 16 December at St Edmund’s, a spacious church in Roundhay known for good acoustics.
The programme for Christmas Treasures contains both well-known and lesser-known items, some of them rearranged by conductor Simon Wright, who is also the Chorus’s Artistic Director. “Silent Night” is still beautiful and just slightly… different. I suspect that some in the audience will not know Sir Charles Parry’s “Blest Pair of Sirens”, composed in the early twentieth century. The words for this are taken from John Milton’s poem “A Song on May Morning”, part of his “Nativity Ode”, and the sheer grandeur of Parry’s music is something else. The Sirens in the title originate in Ancient Greece, where they were inspirational muses for poetry and music. The more recent composer John Joubert is also not as well-known as he once was, which is a pity, because his short choral piece “Torches” has considerable charm, and has been performed (and recorded) by choirs across the world.
There will be some opportunities to sing along with the massed ranks of singers, and there will be a guest soloist in the form of soprano Naomi Simon, who was the winner of the BBC’s Young Chorister of the Year Contest in 2022. A former York student, she was a terrific contributor to our Christmas concert last year. Accompanist will be Rebecca Taylor, who will take the baton from Simon Wright to conduct several numbers.
Next year, the Chorus will give more concerts at York Barbican, and will start rehearsing for a Spanish tour at the end of May which will take in Burgos and Salamanca. Previous recent continental tours have included Venice and Poland, in the years before Covid. As for the return to Leeds Town Hall, there is nothing definite as yet, and some mutterings of doubt about whether it will reopen before the end of 2024. Along with the Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North, we marked its closure with a packed performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, known as the Resurrection Symphony. It was a good choice. Who knows what will be chosen for its grand opening?
Tickets Booking is now open and advanced booking is recommended! Click here to book online.
£24 – Standard ticket with a reserved seat
£18 – unreserved seating at the back of the church
£12 – Concession (full-time student or under 25)
Wheelchair spaces are available, with an accompanying seat that will be booked for no extra cost.
The concert will last approximately 2.5 hours with a 20 minute interval. Refreshments will be available during the interval. Doors are open from 6:50pm.
There is a free car park at the Church, and plenty of street parking on the surrounding streets.
The main entrance to the Church is step-free. There are toilets available at the Church, including one accessible toilet. If there is anything that we can do to make the performance accessible to you, or you have any questions about it, please get in touch with us: [email protected].
