Come and listen to Birmingham Festival Choral Society sing choral music with a Jazz and Blues theme! Gorgeous harmonies and toe-tapping rhythms.
We will be singing with a jazz trio consisting of Kevin Gill on piano, Andy Derrick on double bass and Julian Powell on drums.
See our Concerts page for the full programme.
Drinks will be served at the Ruddock Performing Arts Centre from 7pm. The concert starts at 7.30pm.
Our Passion Music concert on 26th March was a night to remember. Singing with the rhythmic backing of a jazz ensemble and the gorgeous jazz vocalist was a wonderful experience. All those weeks of preparation, and the inspiring workshop with the composer Will Todd came together to produce an evening of glorious choral jazz and blues.
Piano – Kevin Gill, Double bass – Mike Green, Drums – Julian Powell, Saxophone – Andy Isherwood, Soprano – Hannah Davey.
Passion Music, written by Will Todd in 2018, is an extremely moving telling of the Easter story of Christ’s passion through English texts set to jazz and blues. We also loved singing Mass in Blue once again.
The choir wore blue and yellow ribbons to mark the tragic situation in Ukraine. At the beginning of the second half the choir sang A Prayer for Ukraine, and a retiring collection for the Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine Relief Fund raised £620.
Thank you to talented photographer Kyle Simms for this great collection of photographs from the concert.
Will Todd’s Mass in Blue and Passion Music are very different from our usual repertoire, but we’re really loving those jazz rhythms and blues harmonies! Listen to our singers and Music Director talking about the Will Todd music we’re learning for the concert at the Ruddock Performing Arts Centre on 26th March.
One of the thrills of performing works by a living composer is that it’s possible to actually meet them, and discover their views on the way they’d like their music to sound. For this reason, we were delighted that Will Todd was able to join in our choir workshop on Sunday 27th February, and share his thoughts on his Mass in Blue and Passion Music as we prepare for our concert on 26th March.
We all warmed to Will straight away, and soon we found ourselves doing something we would not have believed possible – improvising in Dorian mode! That put us in the right frame of mind to study Passion Music before the break and, fortified by tea and cake, Mass in Blue afterwards.
David (Wynne), our Music Director, led us in singing each section, and then Will made encouraging and helpful comments on the style and tempo of the music. He was not dogmatic – in fact, one of the features of jazz and blues style is that there is room for interpretation.
Click to enlarge photos
Kevin (Gill), accompanied us with those complex jazzy rhythms and unfamiliar blues harmonies on the piano. It is a source of amazement how Kevin can play complex accompaniments to works as diverse as Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Brahm’s German Requiem and Will Todd’s Choral Jazz works without being fazed at all.
As always, there was plenty of time for humour!
Will Todd introduces Passion Music: In this video Will Todd describes how he chose the texts and set the music, illustrated with lots of excerpts from rehearsals and performances.
We’re delighted that Will Todd is coming to our choir workshop on Sunday. We’ll be rehearsing ‘Passion Music’ and ‘Mass in Blue’ , and it will be a real treat to hear insights from the composer of these wonderful pieces. They are challenging to learn, but it’s so rewarding to sing those complex rhythms and gorgeous blues harmonies.
In this 25 minute video, Will Todd gives us an insight into choosing the words for ‘Passion music’ and setting them to music. His fusion of choral, jazz and blues styles brings out the meaning of the story of Christ’s passion with spiritual sensitivity.
