Home page Diary Contacts Weddings Photos Reviews Links	reviews & comments   Thank you letter following the Sound of Water evening 7.5.09 Dear Judy and Ian Thank you both for your contribution to the Sound of Water evening, everyone felt that it was very successful.  Thank you Judy for working with me to get the programme right. Thank you Ian for bringing your beautiful voice to the evening.  Please also give my thanks to the Antiphon choir and its conductor. I thought their sound worked perfectly with the other contributors. Very best wishes,  John Comments about the Handel and Purcell Baroque Concert  in Hexham Abbey with Philip Thorby conducting 14 November 2009 An ambitious programme and performance.  The singers rose to the challenge of the conductor and players; the performance was on the edge of being under-rehearsed, so as a result was exciting! An impressive set of performances.  Well organised and a good length. As well as the choir I enjoyed the band and the soloists. Very good.  Comments re Baroque Workshop on Purcell & Blow with Philip Thorby November 15th 2009  Brilliant Day - thank you Workshop consistently lively. Leader very enthusiastic Wonderful music.  I came because of the leader. One of the best! Most enjoyable and enlightening. Really enjoyable and challenging Lots of really useful exposition, as well as simple enjoyable singing! Fantastic! Such energy, so exciting.  I've really enjoyed it. Well paced activity with increasing complexity. I really enjoyed the energy and enthusiasm of the workshop leader.  This event was well organised, and an enjoyable day. Have enjoyed it immensely. Very stimulating day. Thank you Really good fun.  Worked hard. Very stimulating, exhausting, educational! Very successful day   Feedback from the Cantata Day 3 October 2009 What a great idea! Excellent to involve so many diverse groups. A good day. Like the words of the Cantata. Well done! Fun Really good, I enjoyed it so much Great idea, I think the show will go really well.  In praise of St Francis following our trip to Assisi in May 2009.  A most enjoyable day It was fun A great place: full of happiness  really enjoyed it Pushed me along (at the limits of my abilities) really enjoyed it and learnt a lot  Choir offers taste of tour Hexham Courant 10th October 2008 Antiphon, Tynedale's early music chamber choir, is embarking on a gallic tour to the Burgundy region this month. But before they go, they will be giving a concert in Hexham to showcase their current programme. The concert titled L'Entente Cordiale - love, life, war and death in the music of England and France, will be held at Saint Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Hexham, tomorrow. As is the choir's custom, the focus will be on singing the music of the Renaissance period in both England and the continent within the context of  church services. Helping the audience get into the Burgundian spirit will be a local wine trader who will be offering a glass of red or white wine on the night. The tour to France will take place later this month where concert venues will include a Romanesque abbey where Saint Bernard of Clairvaux preached the Second Crusade to the King of France and all his nobles, a Gothic Cathedral and the hospital ward of a 15th century palace. All Saints' and All Souls' days will be celebrated with the congregations of Vezelay Abbey, Auxerre Cathedral and Asquins village. The choir will be exploring the connections between the secular songs of Renaissance Burgundy and the musical settings of the Mass composed by some of the Region's most influential composers of the period. Founder of the group, Judy Lloyd, said: "Borrowing secular tunes, love songs, military songs, and work songs to provide themes for some of the most sublime spiritual music may seem very strange to us and it would be like us suddenly realising that the solemn organ voluntary was the Mamma Mia theme thinly disguised". Sublime choirs send spirits soaring Concert July 13 2008 Review by Tony May On a wet and miserable summer evening, my spirits were lifted by a sparkling performance of some of the most wonderful 20th century English choral music. The concert was given by the joint forces of Antiphon and Vox Humana to mark the half centenary of the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Held in St Mary's Church, Hexham, the first half of the concert featured the sublime Vaughan Williams's Mass in G minor, first performed by the City of Birmingham Choir in 1922. The conducting was shared between John Roper of Antiphon (which mainly performs early church music in Hexham and the Tyne Valley) and Andrew Soulsby of Vox Humana the Tyneside-based chamber choir which also specialise in early vocal music). The Mass is written for double choir, which was used to great effect as the music seemed to move atmospherically from one side of the church to the other, while the four soloists provided yet another level to the sound with a clarity and intensity that really did make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up! Most thrilling of all, though, were the passages where the entire group ang together, filling the church with sound and utilising to the full the excellent acoustics of St Mary's. The second half of the concert included pieces by some of Vaughan Williams' contemporaries, such as the incredibly moving (and tricky) Faire is the heaven by the organist and composer William Henry Harris. A setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis by Herbert Howells, who incidentally was inspired to become a composer on hearing the first performance of Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis in 1910, was also on the programme. The concert ended with a rousing rendition of Gustav Holst's inspirational setting ofPsalm 148, Lord, who has made us for thine own, provoking a standing ovation! In the words of a friend and fellow audience member, I was "blown away" by the sheer beauty of the music, and the skill and sensitivity with which it was performed. The two choirs certainly did justice to the thoughtfully selected programme with the quality and cohesiveness of their singing. Antiphon tackled formidable works Hexham Courant 17th September 2006 by Katherine Meade Thomas Tomkins was an English composer who lived through the turmoil of the period before the Civil War with all its twists and turns. He suffered from the whims of fortune, and still produced some of the most fascinating work of this great period of English music. Antiphon, a regional amateur choir which specialises in this period of music, and which helps smaller churches which have no choir to keep up the traditions of church choral music, put together an intriguing programme built around Thomas Tomkins's work for the Hexham Abbey Festival. With a lively narration, semi-dramatised, to fill in the details of his career and his contemporaries, the music was skilfully directed by John Roper.  But the narration turned what was billed as a "just over one hour" concert into almost two hours, even after cuts. When in full voice, singing all together, the choir produced a full-blooded sound which made a powerful impact. Singing in smaller groups the sound was inevitably more rough-edged, with occasional lapses. But when we remember that much of this music would have been performed by amateur singers, this was probably as authentic as you could get. Antiphon are to be congratulated for tackling a formidable and ambitious programme with confidence and aplomb.