Concert on 4th June

On 4th June I'll be doing a concert with soprano Bianca Phillips at Emmanuel Church Plymouth.  I thought I'd give you a sneak preview of what we are planning for the programme (subject to change when we've rehearsed at the church!).

I'll be starting on piano with two pieces from the Romantic Period - firstly La fille aux cheveux de lin by Debussy and then April by Ireland.  Ireland's piano music isn't particularly well-known but he wrote some beautiful pieces of music that are well worth hearing.  Emmanuel has a superb 3 manual pipe organ which was rebuilt only a few years ago so Bianca will then be joining me in Panis Angelicus by Cesar Franck and Pie Jesu by Faure with an organ accompaniment.  To close the first half I'm going to try to show off some of the various sounds and colours of the organ by playing the Prince of Denmark's March by Jeremiah Clarke, Prelude on Rhosymedre by Vaughan Williams, Elegy by Thalben-Ball and the famous Toccata from Symphony no. 5 by Widor.

The church always lay on a superb spread of canapes and drinks in the interval included in the ticket price.  Following the interval Bianca will join me in The Prayer and Ich will dir mien herze shanken by J S Bach.  Two jazz numbers will follow this on piano - Time Remembered by Bill Evans and Prelude (melody no. 17) by Gershwin.  The rest of the programme will then be with Bianca - Tell me the truth about love by Benjamin Britten, Jabberwocky by Lee Hoiby, Somewhere over the Rainbow, Summertime by Gershwin and the Rubber Duck song.

Hopefully Bianca and myself have managed to put together a varied and entertaining programme.  Cameras and a screen are used at Emmanuel so you should be able to get a good view from any seat in the church.  Tickets are £8 in advance or £10 on the door (students half price) and are available from Barbican Tourist Office on 01752 306330 or from Ron Wheeler on 01752 227003.  It would be great to see some of you there!

"Religion and Music shouldn't be mixed"

"Religion and Music shouldn't be mixed"  - this is something that was said to me fairly recently by someone who is well known in musical circles. It was in response to a church who were seeking to use concerts as a way of getting people into the building and sharing the Christian message with them.  However, certainly in the Christian faith music has always played a huge part in worship.  In the Old Testament part of the Bible there are many examples of music being used in the Temple worship and we have the book of Psalms which is basically the Bible's hymn book.  While the New Testament contains less examples of music being used in worship, it still talks about Christians encouraging one another with "Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs".  Similarly Revelation, the last book of the bible, talks about there being music in heaven. So music always has and always will be a big part of Christian worship.  However, should we seek to use music to share what we believe with others who perhaps don't share our beliefs? I think this is what was being objected to when the comment I opened this blog with was made.  I guess this immediately gets me thinking of Handel's Messiah and many other great sacred works in the classical repertoire.  Handel's Messiah was certainly controversial in its day and led to complaints for being too theatrical and operatic!  However it has been said that The Messiah has done more to convince thousands of mankind that there is a God about us than all the theological works ever written (Myers, Handel's Messiah).  So whatever our beliefs might be, music has certainly been used for many years to introduce people to the Christian message and as long as people continue to perform the great Oratorios of Handel and others then this will continue.

Feel free to post any comments or thoughts you might have.

First blog post!

Hi all,

Well everyone seems to have their own blog these days so I thought I'd go for it and start one. Obviously as you might expect I'll be mainly talking about music on here but also up for chatting about anything else people might be interested in. So, let me know what you might like to hear about on this blog and we'll see how things go.

Anyway this one's short and sweet as I've got to head off to school and teach now.