MUSIC SOCIETY CHOIR SET TO PERFORM AT CATHEDRAL CONCERT

Chester Music Society Choir is set to launch its new season of concerts with a performance of a dramatic work by one of the UK's most renowned composers of 20th century classical music.

The concert will feature the dynamic "Belshazzar's Feast" by William Walton at Chester Cathedral on Saturday 21^st November at 7.30pm. The choir will be joined by Tenor Daniel Joy, Baritone Andrew Mayor and Liverpool Sinfonia, all under the baton of Conductor Graham Jordan Ellis. In addition to Belshazzar's Feast, the concert will include Gerald Finzi's "For St. Cecilia", "Dies Natalis" and William Walton's "Suite From Henry V".

Originally commissioned by the BBC in 1929, William Walton's "Belshazzar's Feast" is a cantata depicting the Babylonian captivity of the people of Israel, the death of their oppressor Belshazzar and the collapse of the Babylonian kingdom. The result is a choral extravaganza, with vivid musical effects, in turn sinister, bombastic, jazzy and triumphant. "Belshazzar's Feast" has remained one of Walton's most celebrated compositions. The Old Testament story on which the work is based still resonates in the modern world. Into it is injected the spectacular divine intervention of a hand writing on the wall “You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting”. That night, Belshazzar is slain, hence the phrase “the writing’s on the wall”, still commonly used today to imply that something bad is about to happen. 

Controversially, "Belshazzar's Feast" was deemed unsuitable for church performance and banned from the Three Choirs Festival until 1957. It was described by Conductor Herbrt von Karajan as "the best choral music that's been written in the last 50 years" whilst Sir Henry Wood, the founder of the BBC Proms said it was "truly marvellous, like the world coming to an end."

Gerald Finzi's "For St Cecilia" received its premiere at the Royal Albert Hall in 1947, featuring Tenor René Soames, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Luton Choral Society, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. Finzi used the words of his friend, English War Poet Edmund Blunden for the composition which praises St Cecilia, the goddess of Music.  Written by Finzi between 1938 and 1939, "Dies Natalis" is a cantata which uses mystical texts by the seventeenth-century English poet Thomas Traherne. Finzi selected three of Traherne's poems, prefaced by prose drawn from the opening three sections of the Third Century in Centuries of Meditations. Finzi conducted the work at the Three Choirs Festival in 1946.

Composed in 1944 for the Laurence Oliver film "Henry V", William Walton's score was widely acknowledged have contributed  to the success of the film, with Olivier calling it "the most wonderful score I've ever heard on a film". The score has been adapted several times to be performed as a standalone suite, most notably by Sir Malcom Sargent in 1945, in 1963 by Muir Mathieson, who had conducted on the original film soundtrack and in 1988 by Christopher Palmer.

Tenor Daniel Joy began his musical education as head chorister at Croydon Minster. He studied Music at Durham University and was a choral scholar at Durham Cathedral, before studying at The Royal College of Music and graduating at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Daniel made his professional stage debut as Kozak in Statkowski's Maria for Wexford Festival Opera, also broadcast on the BBC and RTE Radio Ireland. He returned to Wexford Festival Opera for several roles, and has worked for opera companies including Opera North, Glyndebourne Festival, Garsington, Grange Park and Scottish Opera. Daniel teaches singing at Eton College, Perse School and Cambridge University. Away from music, he enjoys making perfume, and reviews niche perfume from an organ loft in London.

Andrew Mayor is a Manchester born British baritone. A Graduate of The Royal Academy of Music, London, Andrew has sung numerous operatic roles in the UK including at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Scottish Opera. International engagements have included a tour of the USA for Columbia Artists, Germont and Escamillo in Malaysia, a tour of Germany and Europe singing the title role in Rigoletto for the Compagnia d’Opera Italiana di Milano, and Sharpless (Madama Butterfly) in Tokyo.

Speaking about the concert, Francis Coxhead, the Chair of Chester Music Society Choir said:

"We are delighted to be bringing the dynamic "Belshazzar's Feast" to Chester Cathedral as part of the first concert of our new season. We are looking forward to welcoming soloists Daniel Joy and Andrew Mayor as well as our friends from Liverpool Sinfonia and our renowned Conductor, Graham Jordan Ellis for what promises to be a superb evening of live music."

Full details of "Belshazzar's Feast" can be found at: 

www.chestermusicsociety.org.uk 

...where tickets can be booked online.

Tickets can also be purchased in person at the Chester Cathedral Box Office.