Author: Joan Houlihan

In spite of the strains between Europe and this country, the Entente Cordiale is flourishing in Bollington. The Festival Choir with some of the orchestra presented a programme of carols and works for choir, individual voices and for instruments, the music for which mostly came from France. It also became the occasion of the première […]

One of the deepest roots in European culture lies in Shakespeare. His penetration into the Mystery of Man and the language in which it is realised has made him immortal and has stirred the creativity of many during the last five centuries. Small wonder than that composers from Purcell to Verdi, from Elgar to Britten […]

  This Easter concert given by Choir and Chamber Orchestra was as usual very interesting as well as easy on the ear. It began and ended with works by Bach, Purcell and Handel but, in between, was a Mass by Schubert. This arrangement of the recital brought together the Baroque of previous centuries with the […]

The Christmas concert given by the Bollington Festival Choir this year offered an interesting programme of music entirely English, making it quite different from the usual resources. Much of the first half presented the ‘Missa Brevis’ of the contemporary composer Cecilia McDowall: in the second half, a new work by the composer/conductor of the choir […]

The choir were given their choice as to the contents of their summer recital: and so by their own choosing, choir and organ gave an outstanding programme of enjoyment and quality. Their voices were so well-suited to a selection of works by master composers from the 19th and 20th centuries in England and France. Beginning […]

The concert given by the choir and orchestra this Christmas was a surprise. The music and carols came not from suspected composers or customary versions: instead, performers and audience faced works mainly by a composer newly-discovered, so to speak, by Donald Judge the composer-conductor of the choir. Few listeners in this country would have known […]