Festival Chorus does Newbury proud on its 25th anniversary

NSF Newbury Spring Festival Chorus

at St Nicolas Church, Newbury

on Friday, May 17

Review by FIONA BENNETT

THE atmosphere at St Nic’s was electric. The church was packed and we all knew we were in for a musical treat from our very own festival chorus plus some excellent soloists.

I loved that Tom Primrose, who’d been preparing the chorus for their 25th anniversary concert, also conducted on the night; it just seemed right that he saw the project through from its first rehearsal in March to the final note of the Haydn ‘Nelson’ Mass finale.

A slightly shaky start to Zadok the Priest settled into the famously long crescendo in the build up to that incredible first sung phrase and the choir clearly relished demonstrating the fruits of all their hard work over the past two months. The fiendishly tricky runs in each part went well and the audience enjoyed the opening piece.

It was time to introduce our first soloist; soprano Hilary Cronin was joined by natural trumpet player Katie Lodge for Eternal Source of Light Divine and Let the bright Seraphim (also by Handel). Hilary is an absolute joy to listen to and to watch, her voice is absolutely beautiful and her technique suited the baroque style perfectly. No wonder she won both first prize and audience prize at the 2021 London Handel International Singing Competition.

There was quite a long pause in between pieces, as Katie added different tuning slides to her ‘nat’ trumpet but it was well worth the wait. Let the bright Seraphim was joyous and the duet between voice and trumpet sparkled.

Alex Ashworth has a gloriously rich baritone voice and Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs was the perfect contrast to Handel’s music. Our chorus played a key role and I’ve heard from several VW aficionados that they were very impressed indeed.

I had waited with bated breath for the second half; I absolutely love Haydn’s ‘Nelson’ Mass and it was fabulous. Hilary and Alex were joined by mezzo Lily Mo Browne and tenor Magnus Walker and the combination of these four plus a brilliantly rehearsed NSF Chorus made for a very special finale to their silver anniversary concert.

Our former musical director, Janet Lincé was in the audience, it was wonderful to see her and I know how proud she is of the way the chorus has developed over the past quarter of a century. Here’s to the next 25 years.