Songs of Travel

on the road or over the seas,
pastures new and enchanted islands


the Brighton Orpheus Choir

conducted by Stella Hull

accompanist:  Muriel Hart

with guests Edwin Mansfield (baritone) and  Christopher Stoke (piano)

Saturday 2 July 2005
at 7.30 pm

Dorothy Stringer School main hall
Loder Road (off Surrenden Road), Brighton

".... Fair the fall of songs
When the singer sings them.
Still they are carolled and said -
On wings they are carried -
After the singer is dead
And the maker buried."
from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson

index page

Programme
Handel Chorus of enchanted islanders (from Alcina)

EDWIN MANSFIELD (baritone)

Edwin Pitt Mansfield has been studying at Trinity College of Music for three years with Sophie Grimmer and Mary Hill. He is a regular member and soloist with the Early Music Vocal Ensemble and Chamber Choir. He will be playing the role of Apollo in TCM's summer production of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, and he is also with Opera de Bauge for their 2005 season understudying Garibaldo in Handel's Rodelinda and singing in the chorus.

CHRISTOPHER STOKE (piano)

In 1999, aged 15, Christopher received a full scholarship to study at Trinity College of Music. In just his second year, he made his solo debut, playing Mozart's Piano Concerto no.23 at St John's, Smith Square. He is now studying under the concert pianist, Philip Fowke. In April this year he was soloist in a highly acclaimed performance of Brahms' Piano Concerto no.2 at London's Blackheath Halls.
Mendelssohn Departure
Rossini Prayer (from Moise)
Vaughan Williams Songs of Travel
   The vagabond
   Let beauty awake
   The roadside fire
   Bright is the ring of words
Edwin Mansfield (baritone)
with  Christopher Stoke (piano)
Verdi Chorus of the Hebrew slaves (from Nabucco)
traditional English folksong
arr. Edward Bairstow		 The oak and the ash

MURIEL HART

Muriel has been an accompanist to the choir for over sixty years this year. She has spent all her life in Brighton and has thus become well-known in local music circles. She was awarded an MBE in the 2005 New Year's Honours, for services to music in Brighton & Hove.

For twenty years she taught at Patcham Junior School, specialising in music, and has seen several past pupils become highly regarded professional musicians. After a year as a lecturer at the former College of Education, she became Music Adviser for primary schools in the Brighton, Hove and Portslade area. During this time she was also responsible for three levels of training orchestras which fed the Brighton Youth Orchestra.  She now directs the Golden Age Singers in Lewes and a U3A Singing Group. For many years she has been an active member of the Sussex Musicians' Club and is its Honorary Secretary. Accompanying singers and instrumentalists is her special interest. She is also a very keen gardener!
traditional Tyneside song arr. John Byrt The keel row

Interval
with a glass of wine or juice
Tennessee mountain fiddle song
arr. John Rutter		 Sourwood mountain
         Joseph Barnaby Sweet and low
traditional English folksong
arr. Vaughan Williams		 The turtle dove

with Frank Jordan (tenor)
traditional ballad of the sea
arr. John Whitworth		 The mermaid

STELLA HULL

After obtaining a BMus from Birmingham University, Stella began teaching music to A Level in secondary schools in Worcestershire and the West Midlands. After teaching music in various primary schools in Staffordshire she became the County Advisory Teacher for Music.

Stella studied singing in London with John Carol Case and is a contralto soloist. She teaches singing privately and within the East Sussex County Music Service and conducts the Lewes Junior Choir and the East Sussex County Junior Girls' Choir. She began conducting the Brighton Orpheus Choir in September 1999 and has since then directed all its performances including Vivaldi's Gloria, Handel's Messiah, Poulenc's Gloria, the Requiem of both Brahms and Fauré, Britten's Saint Nicolas, Rutter's Feel the Spirit, Haydn's St Nicholas Mass, Bach's St Matthew Passion and Elgar's The Kingdom.
Mozart Papageno's aria (from The Magic Flute)
Edwin Mansfield (baritone)
with  Christopher Stoke (piano)
Donizetti Bella siccome un'angelo (from Don Pasquale)
Edwin Mansfield (baritone)
with  Christopher Stoke (piano)
John Rutter Home is a special kind of feeling
traditional sea shanty
arr. John Rutter		 The drunken sailor

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