An audience of 200 people came to St Augustine’s. Edgbaston on Saturday to hear Birmingham Festival Choral Society sing Bach’s St John Passion. They were held spellbound by the story of the events of Holy week told in recitative form by the Evangelist (Andrew King) and Jesus (Andrew Tipple). The story was interspersed with exciting choruses and reflective chorales from the choir. Emilia Morton, Matthew Venner, Robert Jenkins and Richard Patterson each sang beautiful arias reflecting on the vents of the story.

The Musical and Amicable Society provided the accompaniment at Baroque pitch on period instruments, some familiar and some unfamiliar to 21st century eyes.

St Augustine’s church seemed a very appropriate setting for such moving sacred music, the covering of all church decoration for Passiontide adding to the atmosphere.

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Here is some of the audience feedback from Social Media:

This stunning church (our first visit) provided just the right kind of backdrop for this awesome performance. It was all such a moving and memorable experience. Thank you and congratulations to all those involved.

Thoroughly enjoyed it! Well done!

We were there and thought it was amazing. St Augustine’s church was a beautiful venue for this incredibly moving performance.

What a wonderful, moving evening. A long journey for us and worth every moment.

Watching Andrew was beautiful – so sensitive and really illuminated the story. The choir were beautifully balanced in sound!

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Thank you to Alfred White for these lovely photographs of the concert, and to St Augustine’s for the cover photo.