Saturday 13 October 2007
Kingston Parish Church, Market Place, Kingston
Paul Patterson: Fifth Continent
Parry: Blest Pair of Sirens
John Bate: Cantari dignus, a Festival Fanfare
Thames Philharmonic Choir
Onyx Brass

Thames Philharmonic Choir's concert in Kingston Parish Church last Saturday featured one of a number of new commissions for Kingston's enterprising Festival of the Voice this year, driven by its ebullient new chairman Benjamin Costello. The superbly crafted text and music of Cantari Dignus, a Festival Fanfare fitted the occasion perfectly.

Local writer Timothy Knapman, demonstrating a beguiling genius with words, produced a golden-nugget of a text to a very tight brief, set to music with appropriate aplomb by Thames Philharmonic Choir's versatile director John Bate. Dynamic, punchy rhythms contrasted with meditative interludes leaning towards a more traditional English cathedral idiom. Bate expertly exploited the accompanying combination of organ and brass in a work that sits comfortably in today's eclectic musical landscape. The choir, dressed in appropriate 'festive' colours, tackled their challenging parts with great gusto, providing an invigorating start to a mixed programme of English Music.

Parry's aptly chosen Blest Pair of Sirens sets John Milton's stirring hymn to 'Voice and Verse' and the Music of the Spheres. Coming after the Bate this was something of a test of stamina for the singers who nevertheless continued to sing with great energy and commitment. In both this work and the following Fantasia and Toccata by Parry's contemporary Stanford, Daniel Cook's sensitive and virtuosic playing displayed the deliciously expressive versatility of All Saint's Frobenius organ to the full.

The Thames Philharmonic choir has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with Paul Patterson, one of Britain's foremost composers. Celebrating his 60th birthday year, his recent work The Fifth Continent - a Gift from the Sea formed the most substantive work in the concert. Here, Romney Marsh's haunting atmosphere, so effectively captured in Ben Kaye's text, is imaginatively interpreted in some astonishingly effective musical landscape painting for the unusual combination of mezzo, brass quintet, organ and choir. This provided unique challenges for the conductor John Bate and his performers who typically rose to the challenge with an authoritative, assured performance. The deep, mellow tones of Heather Shipp's Mezzo solos were particularly impressive, singing with strength and poise to an accompaniment of brass and organ that most soloists would find an utterly terrifying prospect.

Patterson certainly pulled no punches in his writing for brass quintet, with challenging material full of subtle, virtuosic detail adroitly rendered by the vivacious Onyx Brass ensemble. Versatility and precision also shone in their earlier good-humoured rendition of the late Sir Malcolm Arnold's showpiece Brass Quintet no. 1 - which was prefaced with a promise to reveal the current score of the nail-biting England-France Rugby match underway as they played! Did earpieces from the dressing room find their way on to the concert platform to add an invigorating frisson to their rip-roaring performance?

Rugby notwithstanding, this programme of largely unfamiliar contemporary works drew a very respectable and appreciative audience - an enterprising triumph for Kingston Arts - and a success richly deserved by the indomitable spirits of Ben Costello, John Bate and their talented, hard-working teams of performers, collaborators and supporters.

Kevin Jones , 13 October 2007