An evening with the music of John Rutter

Programme: The Sprig of Thyme, Anthems and the Rutter Requiem.

 

    

Saturday 25th March 2023

St Luke’s Church, Tiptree (CO5 0SU) at 19:30

Musical Director: Malcolm Boulter

Soloist: Laura Burke

Accompanist: David Leveridge

Tickets £15 adults, accompanied children under 16 free, students £5

Tickets will be on sale soon.

Tel: 01206 734625

Advance purchase recommended, both cash and card payments will be accepted on the door.

Further information from contact@tiptreechoral.uk

Please download a poster

Further information from contact@tiptreechoral.uk.

For children growing up in post-war England as John Rutter did, traditional songs still formed a common musical currency. School choirs sang folk songs arranged by Holst and Vaughan Williams and everyone knew ‘Greensleeves’ and ‘Rule Britannia’ by heart.

Vaughan Williams, who collected folk songs, saw them as a crucial part of Britain’s national musical consciousness and they were certainly commonplace in music lessons for all those in primary education in the 1950s, only really ousted by the vibrancy of the 1960’s pop culture. A vanished age, but when everyone knew them, folk songs provided a solid, shared musical culture that brought a lot of pleasure to singers and listeners alike. Many are now forgotten, but in his arrangement of eleven folk songs from England, Ireland and Scotland – ‘The Sprig of Thyme’ - John Rutter has collected together an affectionate tribute to the composers and poets of the past

With thanks to John Rutter’s foreword to the John Rutter Edition of ‘The Sprig of Thyme’ CD

John Rutter was born in September of 1945; Tiptree Choral Society gave its first concert (in aid of the piano fund!) in December 1945 so we date from the same year and his music, whether as arrangements of folk songs, his carols or his longer works, has featured in the Society’s repertoire for much of the time that Rutter has been writing and arranging. Rutter could be said to be our ‘go to’ composer when we are celebrating something too.

In an interview a few years ago, John Rutter spoke about his first love – he was a singer before he was a composer or a pianist: “It is wonderful to go to a choral concert, but I think the deepest joy of all is to actually sing.” You would be very welcome to find that out for yourselves by joining us for a rehearsal in Tiptree’s URC.