Gaudeamus Notes



GAUDEAMUS NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2011

Dear Friends and supporters

As promised in our last newsletter, we are now writing with more details about our concerts this year. Our first concert of the year is on 5th March at 7.30pm at St Augustine’s Church, Thorpe Bay, where we will be joined by David Galbraith at the organ and piano.

Admission is free with a retiring collection, and there will be wine and fruit juice served in the interval. We are looking forward to our first visit to St Augustine’s in nearly twenty years, and they have certainly been making sterling efforts to ensure a good audience: John Street, who is a member of the church as well as Gaudeamus spent a whole day with two of his fellow parishioners delivering 2,000 adverts for our concert to every house in the parish!

On Saturday, 12th March, we are doing an afternoon concert for Rayleigh Baptist Church’s Seniors’ Club. made up from the lighter items from our St Augustine’s programme and solo items. Friends and supporters are most welcome to come. The concert runs from 3- 4pm, with refreshments afterwards and admission is £3.

On Saturday 7th May at 7.30pm we will be making a return visit to St Mary’s Prittlewell for a concert entitled ‘Sumer is icumen in’. No prizes for guessing what is on the programme! As well as a certain medieval canon, there will be anthems, madrigals (at last, a chance to sing ‘Now is the month of Maying’ in the right month...) light music and barbershop to get everyone into a summer mood.

At the beginning of July, we are due to welcome our French twin choir, Les Amicroches, for a weekend of conviviality and singing, with a joint concert on Saturday 2nd July at 7.30pm. This will be held at St James the Less, Hadleigh. When we stayed with Les Amicroches in 2008, we were plied with food and drink (champagne!!) before the concert, so as you can imagine, the singing was enthusiastic and a great time was had by all. We hope to repeat the experience for our visitors, and we anticipate a lively concert

The following weekend, Sunday July 10th, we are singing at Layer Marney Tower as part of a music day. Layer Marney Tower is a fine Tudor gatehouse, and we will be singing madrigals and music from Tudor times during the course of the afternoon. It promises to be an enjoyable day out, and friends, family and fans are all welcome to come for the day.

For details of our concerts, please visit our website www.gaudeamuschoir.tk or our Facebook page or email us via the website. You are also welcome to ring Marilyn Goodman on 01702 520639. Once again, we thank you all for your continuing support and we look forward to seeing you during 2011.

GAUDEAMUS NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2010

Dear Friends and supporters

Christmas is coming, and that means shopping, cooking and of course carols.
We have two Christmas concerts for you this year. On Saturday 11th December at 7.30pm we are at St Clement’s Church, Leigh on Sea, for a concert entitled ‘O come all ye faithful’.
This is a programme based on the words of this well-known carol, and will include some old favourite Christmas numbers, some new pieces of Christmas music including Morten Lauridsen’s lovely motet O magnum mysterium and ‘So said the angel’ a lighter piece by Peter Skellern, who you may recall used to be a guest on the TV programme ‘That’s Life’ back in the 1970s.
As well as listening to us, you will have the usual opportunity to sing along as well in the traditional carols.
The full programme is on our website, www.gaudeamuschoir.tk . Tickets are £8 including refreshments and are available from Sue Hibbert at St Clements, 01702 559484 or normanandsuehibbert@talktalk.net or on the door.

The following Saturday, 18th December, we are at St James the Less, Hadleigh, at 7.30pm, for an informal Christmas concert entitled ‘Christmas with Gaudeamus’.
This will include not only choral and audience items, but also solos and duets from choir members, and seasonal readings.
We have done a few concerts at Hadleigh in this format and they keep asking us back, so that should tell you something...! Tickets are £8 including refreshments. Please contact Brenda Inston 01268 757370 or f.inston@sky.com with enquiries about tickets.

In the new year, we are venturing down the road to Thorpe Bay, with a concert at St Augustine’s Church on 5th March at 7.30pm. This is our first visit there since 1992, and we are looking forward to returning there. Our programme there will include anthems with organ, with David Galbraith once again accompanying us, unaccompanied motets and lighter pieces. More details about that nearer the time.

The following Saturday, 12th March, we will be doing an afternoon concert for Rayleigh Baptist Church’s Seniors’ Club. This will be a 1-hour programme of lighter sacred and secular music starting at 3pm, with tea and cakes afterwards. Our contact there is Rosemary Parmenter, 01268 784890.

Further on into next year, we will be making a return visit to St Mary’s Prittlewell on Saturday 7th May, with a typical Gaudeamus mixed programme, and at the beginning of July, we are due to welcome our French twin choir, Les Amicroches, for a weekend of conviviality and singing, with a joint concert on Saturday 2nd July. More details to follow nearer the time. Our guests will be staying with choir members and supporters over the weekend, and if any of you would be interested in hosting a French singer or two, and joining in the fun, please contact Tony Harvey, our in-house trip organiser, on 01702-556160 or tonyharv@talktalk.net .

For enquiries about any of our concerts, you are also welcome to ring Marilyn Goodman on 01702 520639.

Once again, we would like to thank you all for your continuing support and hope that you will be able to join us at some of our forthcoming concerts.

With best wishes and thanks, and a merry Christmas to you all

Ruth Brown


GAUDEAMUS NEWSLETTER APRIL 2010

Dear Friends and supporters

Now that the weather is warmer and the days are longer, we are looking forward to summer and a feast of summer music, and we hope that you will be able to join us for some of our forthcoming concerts.

At the moment we are preparing for our trip to Lake Garda and Venice at the end of May, and one of the highlights will be singing for Mass at St Marks, Venice on 2nd June. We will be singing music from our Italian tour at two concerts. The first will be at All Saints Barling, on Saturday 22nd May.This will be our third concert at Barling in recent years, and if you have been to either of our previous ones, you will know that you get more than just a concert. This time, the organisers will be serving a fork buffet before the concert and desserts during the interval. Tickets are £12 and can be obtained from Jill Bulman at Barling bulman.bluesky@virgin.net or from our Marilyn Goodman 01702 520639. We are joined for the tour and this concert by three string players from Southend Symphony Orchestra and the concert ‘An Evening in Venice’ will include music by Vivaldi, Monteverdi and Gabrieli, including the latter’s 10-part motet in honour of St Mark, also madrigals, motets, opera choruses and solo items.

On our return, we will be doing a shorter concert of our Italian music on Thursday, 17th June at Wesley Methodist Church, Leigh, from 9.15-10.00pm. This concert is part of the Leigh Art Trail events and is free, with a retiring collection in aid of the Leigh Art Trail’s nominated charity. We did a similar late evening concert for Leigh Art Trail last year, which was well received, and both we and the Art Trail committee are pleased to be able to join forces again.

If you would like to see what we got up to for Leigh Art Trail last year, a video of our Music Trail event is now on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfDGeOctAdY

Another successful event from last year which we will be repeating is our concert at the Bandstage in Priory Park. This year we are booked to sing there on Saturday 24th July, from 3-5pm. This concert will feature our lighter music and solo items by members of the choir. The Bandstage concerts attract a lot of support if the weather is good, so if you are planning on coming to the concert, you may like to bring your own seating, or get there in good time to get a seat. This year, our concert will form part of a weekend ‘Summer Festival’ run by Southend Borough Council, so there will be lots happening that day as well as our concert.

After the summer holiday break, we will be travelling further afield, to North Fambridge Church on Sunday 26th September for an afternoon concert of light music, and to Chelmsford Cathedral for a Friday Lunchtime Recital on 29th October. We are looking forward to a return visit there, as last year we sang to a packed cathedral of over 300 people!

We will be rounding off the year with two Christmas concerts, at St Clements’ Church, Leigh, on 11th December, and at St James the Less, Hadleigh, on 18th December. More about our autumn term concerts nearer the time, and on our website www.gaudeamuschoir.tk

We thank all of our friends for your continuing support and hope that you will be able to join us at some of our concerts this year. With best wishes and thanks

November 09
Dear friends and supporters,

Another action-packed year is nearing its end and the season of carol concerts is approaching.

This year, our concert is entitled ‘Around the World in 80 Carols’ and takes in Christmas music from across Europe, America, the Caribbean, Columbia and Australia. The Columbian piece is proving a challenge as we have not sung in Spanish before, but we will have cracked it by the time of the first concert. We are joined this year by David Galbraith as our guest organist, and he will be playing some solo items as well. As always at Christmas, there will be plenty of audience participation carols, so do come along in good voice.

This year we are doing the concert twice. The first performance will be at Highlands Methodist Church on Saturday 5th December at 7.30pm. Tickets are £5 and £4 for concessions, and are available from Les Davis at b.les.davis@btinternet.com or 01702 558381. We have done many concerts at Highlands over the years, including several Christmas ones, and our supporters can be sure of a warm welcome (literally – the heating is always very efficient there!) and hot mince pies in the interval.

Alternatively, you can hear us the following Saturday, 12th December, at All Saints Church, Barling. The organisers there are making an event of the evening, and the ticket price of £12 will include hot food and mulled wine before the concert, and tea, coffee and Christmas cake in the interval. They would prefer to sell tickets before the day if possible, because of numbers for catering. We have been allocated a block of tickets to sell, so to pre-book, please ring Marilyn Goodman on 01702 520639.

So far, 2010 is looking fairly quiet (diary-wise, not musically, I’m pleased to say). We have been invited to sing at Lawford, near Manningtree, on 13th February, but our next concert in this area will be on Saturday 22nd May, when we will be previewing the music that we will be performing on our tour to Lake Garda at the end of May. We have also been invited to include a concert again within the Leigh Art Trail, in June. Planning for that is still at an early stage, but we can safely say that it will not involve singing to a backdrop of motor scooters like we did this year! If you don’t know what I am on about, we will shortly be uploading a film of the event onto YouTube and will let you know when that is available to watch.

With best wishes, and many thanks for your continuing support.

March 2009

I hope this newsletter finds you well and looking forward to spring after all the cold weather and snow that we have had so far this year.

I must begin with an apology, for not having written to you sooner about changes of plan for the spring programme. Unfortunately, Les Amicroches, our French exchange choir, have had to cancel the visit that they had hoped to make in May this year, due to lack of support, and as a result, we decided to cancel the two concerts we had planned this spring, in March and May, and to set a single date for our anniversary party. If you were wondering why we had not been in touch about the 14th March event, this is why. My particular apologies go to those of you who took the trouble to contact us about the 14th March.

We have moved the 21st anniversary event to the evening of Saturday 9th May. This will be a concert with buffet supper. However, the venue where we are holding it, the Red Barn at Sutton Hall Farm, only has seating for 50 guests, so ticket numbers will be limited. We are in the process of contacting former choir members, and they and the existing choir members will have priority for tickets, but there should be some tickets available for our regular supporters as well. Tickets are £10 including food but not drink. If you would like to apply for tickets, please ring Marilyn Goodman on 01702 520639 (email supporters please reply by return email to Colin) and she will take names and contact you nearer the time to let you know whether we are able to offer you tickets.

Plans are coming along for the Leigh Art Trail events in June. On Thursday 18th June we will be singing a late concert from 9.15 to 10.00pm at St Clements Church. This concert is entitled ‘Nocturnes’ and will feature pieces on the theme of evening and night. On Sunday 14th June, we will be singing at various venues in Leigh, starting at 2pm and ending with a short concert at 4.30 – 5.00pm, after the trail closes. I am still in the process of confirming venues for the various sets, but hope to be singing in Leigh Library Gardens, Old Leigh and St Clements Church during the course of the afternoon. It is proving quite a complex exercise, because of fitting around various other events taking place that day, and needing to get permission from the various venues, including wet weather alternatives, but we will publicise details nearer the time, once everything is arranged and in place.

After the summer break, we will be taking our chance with the weather again and on Sunday September 20th we will be performing another outdoor concert, this time at the former Cliffs Bandstage, which is now installed near the cafe in Priory Park. The concert lasts from 3pm to 5pm with a short break, and is free. We will feature both choir items and solo and small group pieces. You can come and go as you wish, and buy refreshments to eat and drink during the concert. I am told that on a fine day, we can expect a good audience, and that none of last summer’s concerts was actually cancelled due to bad weather, but with some, the audience joined the performers on the bandstage! We hope you will be able to join us for this.

Finally, advance notice that we will be doing a Christmas concert on Saturday 5th December at Highlands Methodist Church, and hopefully also a Christmas concert at Barling. This latter event is in the early stages of planning: we are still sorting out a date at the moment. You may remember the hog roast concert we did at Barling in 2007, and from what I have been told so far, it sounds as if we will be in for something special again there!

With best wishes, and many thanks for your continuing support.
Ruth Brown, Musical Director

Newsletter November 2008

As we near the end of another busy year, we are looking forward to Christmas and the New Year, and I hope that you are, too.

We have two Christmas concerts this year. On Saturday 6th December, at 7.30pm, we will be singing at Highlands Methodist Church, Leigh on Sea, in a joint concert with the choir of St Bernard’s High School. As well as traditional singalong carols, the St Bernards girls will be singing songs from the shows and modern Christmas music. We will also be featuring their musical director, Hilary Pell, who is well known locally as a mezzo-soprano soloist. Gaudeamus’ own contribution will include old and modern Christmas music in a variety of styles, and of course, the barbershop boys. Tickets are available on the door or from Les Davis 01702 558381 or this link.

Our second concert, on Saturday 20th December, 7.30pm, at St James the Less, Hadleigh, will feature solo items, readings and instrumental pieces by members of Gaudeamus, as well as choir items and audience carols. Regulars at St James’ concerts will know that they include a good buffet in the admission price. This year’s programme includes a piece by Perotin, the earliest known composer of music in more than one part, plus other more familiar items. Tickets are available on the door or from Brenda Inston 01268 757370.

We have some exciting new ventures lined up for 2009. On Friday, 20th February, 12.30-1.15pm, we will be giving a concert at Chelmsford Cathedral as part of their lunchtime recital series. The Cathedral lays on weekly lunchtime concerts during most of the year, and they are usually very well supported. Admission is free, and you can buy drinks, cakes and sandwiches beforehand to eat during the concert. This will be our first performance in Chelmsford Cathedral, and I am planning a fairly ‘classical’ programme to make the most of the venue.

Gaudeamus was founded in 1988, and we still have members who have been with the choir from the beginning. We still have a copy of the programme for the first concert, on 16th March 1988, and on Saturday 14th March we will be holding a special event to celebrate our twenty-first birthday, including a concert of some of the music that we have sung in our 21 years, especially that dating back to the early years, an exhibition of photos and programmes, and a buffet supper. At the time of compiling this newsletter, we have still to sort out the details, including the venue, but please note the date for now and we will tell you more in due course.

The next event in the diary for 2009 is a new venture for us. Next year, we will be included as part of the Leigh Art Trail, and on the afternoon of Sunday 14th June and the evening of Thursday 18th June, we will give a series of short performances at various venues in and around Leigh. This will take the form of a ‘music trail’, with music to suit the different venues, everything from sea shanties down at Bell Wharf to Renaissance church music in a Leigh church, madrigals, folk songs and barbershop in the open air, if the weather allows us, and featuring both the full choir and smaller groups.

The Leigh Art Trail is a week when artists open their studios and display their work to the public at venues throughout Leigh, all free of charge. I am told that the event is well supported, especially on the opening weekend, and this will be a great opportunity for us to reach a wider audience. The Leigh Art Trail will be well publicised in the local press nearer the time, and we will send you another newsletter before then once arrangements have been put in place.

On the subject of newsletters, once again, we would encourage those of you who have computers and use email to let us have your email addresses, so that we can send future communications to you that way. You can email us on this or on any topic – we appreciate your views - via the website, or directly to me at this link. We also now have a Gaudeamus page on Facebook, and at the moment, we are the only group of that name on the site. The page is at an early stage, so if you are into Facebook, do visit it and leave us a message, post photos, and let us know what you think.

We hope that you will be able to join us for some of our forthcoming concerts and we look forward to seeing you in due course.

With best wishes

Ruth Brown, Musical Director

Newsletter June 2008

It is some time since we sent our last newsletter out, but that does not mean that we have been quiet. For those of you who may not have heard the news, Ruth and Lawrence’s daughter Lizzie was born on 28th November and has since been a regular attender at rehearsals of both Gaudeamus and the Southend Festival Chorus, much to the delight of choir members. It’s a bit early to tell whether she will be a soprano or an alto, but she definitely likes singing, which is just as well in their household!

We have just returned from a successful visit to Cregy-les-Meaux, near Paris, where we went as guests of the French choir Les Amicroches. Our hosts could not have been more generous and we were treated to lavish hospitality throughout the visit, including a champagne buffet before our joint concert, so some of the choir members were distinctly relaxed during the performance! We will be repeating our French performance, minus champagne, on Saturday 21st June at St James the Less, Hadleigh, as part of their Friends’ open day. The Friends have organised a series of musical events during the day, and Gaudeamus will be singing from 12.30 to 1.15pm.

Our next engagement after that will be singing Choral Evensong at Rochester Cathedral on Saturday 2nd August. You may recall that we sang Choral Evensong at Christ Church Oxford two years ago and some of you joined us for the day. We are planning to take a coach to Rochester, and if anyone would like to come along, you will be most welcome. Hopefully the coach will not break down this time! Please contact Tony Harvey on 01702 556160 or tonyharv@talktalk.net if you would like to join us.

After the summer break, our next concert will be at Crowstone Christian Centre, Westcliff, on 13th September, 7.30pm. Crowstone has received a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to renovate the organ, and the work is in progress at the moment. Our concert will be the culmination of a day of events to showcase the newly refurbished organ and will feature anthems with organ, organ solos by local organist David Galbraith and lighter music from the 1920s, the time when the organ was first built. The day will also include a ‘hands on’ session for local organists, a children’s tour of the instrument, and refreshments. See the local press nearer the time for more details.

Further ahead, we have a concert at St Clement’s Church, Leigh on Saturday 11th October, 7.30pm. This will be a typical Gaudeamus mixed programme, including a further performance of Barber’s Agnus Dei, his own arrangement of his famous Adagio for Strings. This was very well received at our concert at St Marys Prittlewell in April, and several people, both choir and audience, have asked us to do it again. The rest of the programme will include madrigals, folk songs, light music arrangements and solo items.

Finally, we have two Christmas bookings this year. On Saturday 6th December we will be singing at Highlands Methodist Church in a joint concert with St Bernard’s High School choir, and on Saturday 20th December we go back to St James the Less, Hadleigh. The programmes for these will be chosen nearer the time, but we can safely say that you will have the chance to have a sing, and you will also hear music that you will not hear at anyone else’s carol concert. Watch this space.....

We hope that you will be able to join us for some of these events and we look forward to seeing you in due course.

With best wishes

Newsletter 2007

Gaudeamus has another varied and exciting programme to offer for 2007 and we are sure that you would not want to miss any of it, so please have your diaries ready!
On Holy Saturday 7th April, 7.30pm, at Highlands Methodist Church, Leigh-on-Sea, we will be performing Handel’s Messiah, using our own choir members for the solos and accompanied by a Chamber Orchestra. The Easter scripture is most moving, both in it’s poignancy and in the renewal of hope. Do join us for this remarkable work.
On Saturday 19th May, 7.30pm. at St. John’s Church, Pier Hill, Southend, we will present ‘Serenata Italiana.’ This concert will be a preview of the music we have prepared for our Italian concert trip to Rome on 28th May. It will include sacred music, Italian madrigals and popular Neapolitan songs, sung in Italian, of course. This musical feast will be followed by Italian refreshments! Not to be missed!
While we are in Rome, ( 28 May-1June) we will be performing choral pieces within a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, a concert at Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano and a final concert at St. Paul’s Within The Walls, the American Episcopalian Church.
There is one place left for this trip! If anyone is interested, please contact Tony Harvey, 01702 556160.

On our return from Rome, we will be welcoming the French choir, Les Amicroches . We look forward to sharing our concert with them on Saturday 7th July, 7.30pm, at Highlands Methodist Church, Leigh-on-Sea.
The French choir will be arriving on Thursday evening, 5th July. They will then organise a day out in London for the whole of Friday 6th July. On Saturday, they will spend the afternoon rehearsing with us, followed by the evening concert. They return to France on Sunday 8th July.
We need to find supporters who would be willing to host any of the choir for three nights. They will require a meal on Thursday evening, B & B for Friday and Saturday and breakfast on Sunday morning. If you feel able to offer any help, please contact Tony Harvey, 01702 556160.
You will, of course, be welcome to accompany Gaudeamus when we visit France for the ‘return match’ next year.

After the summer break, we are back for a concert in Brightlingsea, Essex, 7.30pm on Saturday 15th September. Do join us for this. September is such a lovely month for a late summer evening out in this delightful part of Essex. Better still, bring a picnic and make a day of it!

As we approach the dark evenings once more, we will be performing on Saturday 27th October, 7.30pm. at Wesley Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, singing a programme guaranteed to lift your spirits.
Full details of our programmes will be advertised on our web site in the weeks prior to the concerts.

Sadly, we have had to say farewell to Eileen Burzynska . She had been a member of the alto section for many years. She has moved to Oxford, and we are pleased to report that she is happily settled and is already a valued member of a chamber choir, very similar in size and musical output to that of Gaudeamus.
We also had to say goodbye to Annita lemon-van de Kooij, who moved to Sussex. She was only with the sopranos for a short time, but her contribution as a singer and a fine recorder player were much appreciated.

Suggestions

We would welcome any thoughts you may have on any aspect of Gaudeamus. It is only through communication that we can improve our offerings. The following people can be contacted by telephone, or by email through the website. www.gaudeamuschoir.tk

Chairman
Tony Harvey
01702 556160

Musical Director
Ruth Brown
01702 421550
Secretary
Lawrence Barker
01702 421550

Concert organisers
Kathy Hartnett
01702 304816
Marilyn Goodman
01702 520639

Finally, we would like to appeal to you for help! If you could help to publicise concerts, put posters and leaflets in shops, cafes and churches, or help organise/serve refreshments at our concerts, we would be most grateful. Any member of the choir would love to hear from you!

NOVEMBER 2005

We have had another busy year of singing, and are looking forward to Christmas and 2006.

As some of you will know, we had a very enjoyable concert tour to Prague in May, where we sang two concerts in Baroque churches with amazing acoustics, St Nicholas in the Old Town Square, and St Ignatius in Charles Square, the latter involving singing from the organ loft many feet up above the congregation. We were heard at both concerts by a professional singer from Portland Oregon, USA, who was most impressed. We exchanged email addresses and are looking into the possibility of an exchange visit with his choir at some point.

Back at home, our next concert is the Christmas concert on Saturday 10th December, 7.30pm, at Highlands Methodist Church, Leigh on Sea (not St Clements, as listed in some of our advance publicity). This concert follows the traditional 9 Lessons and Carols format, with readings by members of the choir, and carols, including the usual audience participation carols, to illustrate the story of the Nativity. A feature of this concert is that, due to Ruth Brown being indisposed, the concert will be conducted by two members of the choir, Lawrence Barker and Rob Little, who are sharing the programme between them. Please do come and give them your support.

After that, our next concert on Saturday March 18th at St Clement’s Church, Leigh on Sea, when we will be singing a programme of music for the seasons of Lent and Easter. We will be joined for that concert by David Galbraith and some instrumentalists, and the programme will include Tallis’s Lamentations, Lotti’s Crucifixus and Monteverdi’s Gloria.

Our summer concert will be on Saturday June 10th, venue to be arranged, with a repeat on Saturday 24th June at St Peter ad Vincula, Coggeshall and will be the usual Gaudeamus mixture of pieces, sacred and secular, Classical and light.

Full details of our programmes will be advertised on our website in the weeks prior to the concert. Our website now has a new home, http://www.gaudeamuschoir.tk. We will be revamping and updating the website in the next few weeks – do dip in from time to time and see what we are up to. You can also email us via the site or email Ruth via her address below. As well as our own site, we also advertise our concerts in advance on http://www.gerontius.net (‘the dream site for choirs’) and the Music in Essex site: http://www.musicinessex.info.

As well as our own concerts, Gaudeamus members will also be taking part in a concert for the Friends of St James the Less, Hadleigh on 28th January, entitled ‘From Ballads to Barbershop’ and featuring classic Victorian and Edwardian ballads, music hall songs and similar fare, with the men of Gaudeamus supplying the barbershop items. Then the following Saturday, 4th February, Rob Little (tenor) is giving a solo recital at Highlands Methodist Church as part of the Music at Highlands series. He is accompanied by Ruth Brown and the programme includes works by Schubert, Mahler and Vaughan Williams.

Finally, on behalf of the choir we would like to thank you for your continuing support. We do hope we will see you at one or more of our concerts this year.

January 2005

The website has unfortunately been out of action for a while. Our next concert is a joint venture with the Stondon singers from Brentwood. The hightlight of this concert will be a performance of Tallis's 40 part motet Spem in Alium. More details will be available soon.

June 2003

Our next concert is on July 12th. See the concert page for details. After this we are having a concert of Baroque choral works with orchestra including Bach's Magnificat and Vivaldi's Gloria on 11th October.

Our Christmas Concert will take place at St David's Eastwood on 13th December. We hope to involve a local school choir.

On 6th March 2004 we will be singing at St Leonard's Lexden Colchester.

May 2003 Unfortunately the Washington Vienna Choral Society will not be coming over here this year owing to the Iraq War. Hopefully they will be here next year instead. Watch this space to find out. There will still be a concert on 12th July but this will be a Gaudeamus affair. We are looking at Britten's Hymn to St Cecilia and other items including a sixteenth century madrigal with some extremely interesting words. It will be up to our normal high standards and we hope for a good turn out.

February 2003

A belated Happy New Year to you all. We thought you would appreciate being brought up to speed with our projected activities in 2003.

The year so far

After a very successful Christmas Carol Concert at St. Saviour’s Church on December 21st, followed by the traditional mince pies and mulled wine, we are planning a full programme for the coming year.

Forthcoming events

We have two concerts planned for next month.

The first is on Saturday 15th March at 7.30 p.m. at St. Nicholas Church, Canvey Island, when we shall be presenting a concert of Choral Classics, to include a wide range of music to suit every taste.

The second concert, on Saturday 29th March at 7.30 p.m. at Holy Trinity Church, Rayleigh is our Spring Concert and features The Septet (members of the Southend Symphony Orchestra).

This will be a concert of choral and instrumental music including works by Monteverdi, Mozart, Beethoven, Rutter and others.

Entry for both concerts will be £5.00 (Concession £4.00) by programme available at the door or from Marilyn Goodman (01702) 520639.

Detail of our concerts can also be found in Music in South Essex and on the Essex.localife website.

We are looking forward to another visit from our “sister” choir in Washington, the Vienna Choral Society, who will be coming to Southend in July this year. They were last here in 1997 and we visited them in Washington in 1999. We shall be presenting a joint concert with them on Saturday 19th July at a venue yet to be arranged.

For further news, watch this space – and our website!

Gaudeamus online

If anyone has not yet visited us online, log on to www.gaudeamuschoir.tk.mu to see and hear us. This all-singing all-dancing (well, all-singing, at least) website includes information on forthcoming concerts, photos, recordings of us, sheet music samples of our home-grown arrangements and compositions and much more. Visit the site and leave us a message, and get your friends to do so as well!

Help!

It takes a lot of time and effort to run the choir and to organise and publicise concerts. We can always use more help, especially with distributing publicity material, recruiting new following and organising refreshments at concerts. If you have time to spare and would like to get more involved with Gaudeamus, we will be most grateful. Please contact any member of the choir.

CDs for sale Our CD, Gaudeamus in Concert, continues to sell well. We presume that most of our friends and supporters will have bought one by now, but if not, buy now while stocks last! The CD features a typical Gaudeamus programme and includes anthems, madrigals, folk songs, spirituals and light music.

Suggestions

We would welcome your thoughts on this newsletter, or indeed any aspect of Gaudeamus. If you would like to contribute anything to future editions of the newsletter, please don’t be shy! Contact us

Chairman – Tony Harvey 01702 556160 Tony Harvey

Musical Director – Ruth Brown 01702 421550 Ruth Brown

Concert Organisers Kathy Hartnett 01702 304816 Kathy Hartnett,

and Marilyn Goodman 01702 520693

Everyone can be contacted by e-mail through this website

This is our previous newsletter

Welcome to Gaudeamus Notes, a new twice-yearly newsletter which we hope will keep you informed of what we are up to.

The year so far:

Musically, 2002 has been a good year so far. After the success of our two Christmas concerts, we performed a light after-supper concert for a Shrove Tuesday supper at St Laurence Eastwood, an ambitious Passiontide and Easter programme at St David Eastwood, and a typical mixed-bag summer programme at St Saviours Westcliff and St John Finchingfield. The Easter concert included what we believe was the first perfomance in Southend of John Tavener’s Song for Athene, the funeral anthem which was sung at the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997. On top of all this, we sang part of Bach’s motet Singet dem Herrn at the wedding of Ruth Brown and Lawrence Barker in May, and barn-danced the night away at their reception at Hylands House.

Forthcoming events

We have two more concerts planned for this year. The autumn concert “Autumn Leaves” will be on Saturday 12th October at Belfairs Methodist Church and will feature a typical mixture of pieces with an autumnal feel. We sang our autumn concert at Belfairs Methodists last year. It is a small attractive modern church with good acoustics, and comfort-lovers will be pleased to learn that it has effective heating and cushions on the pews!

The Christmas concert will be on December 21st at St Saviours, Westcliff and will involve the usual mix of traditional and modern carols, Christmas motets and popular songs, plus the obligatory audience participation for those of you who still have any voice left that close to Christmas! We hope to combine forces with an instrumental group and a children’s choir to make for a memorable start to the Festive Season.

Detail of our concerts can also be found in Music in South Essex and on the Essex.localife website.