Category: news

David Coram is not able to be with us this year, but we’re delighted to be working with Sam Hanson for most of the week, and with Alison Davies on Friday. Alison is Director of Music at Pimperne; Sam plays regularly at Wimborne Minster, and is no stranger to Laudemus!

We now have a music list for this summer, with some terrific pieces. Canticles include Francis Jackson (in G, just heard in today’s Evensong from Keble), Howells (St Paul) and Gibbons (Second Service); anthems include Weelkes ‘I heard a voice’ and Wesley ‘Ascribe unto the Lord’. Roll on July!

Overwhelming response to this year’s invitation to singers: oversubscribed in virtually every voice (not tenors, of course, but they always require special nurturing). Makes life very easy for us, but very disappointing for those we will have to turn away, including some long-standing friends.

And the final piece of the jigsaw: Stinsford have confirmed us for Wednesday 18 July.The demolished musicians’ gallery was reinstated in the 1990s and now houses a little continuo-style organ in place of the instruments which would have been familiar in Thomas Hardy’s day. Will we fit up there, I wonder? And can we source music such as Hardy’s contemporaries would have heard? Watch this space!

Really charming email today from Alison Davies, director of music for the Benefice which includes Pimperne, to say that they look forward to welcoming us at S. Peter’s on Friday 20 July. We’ve not sung there since 2000. Just one more church to confirm (Stinsford), and we have a full house!

Plans for the 2018 tour taking shape, with three out of five churches confirmed. In addition to Wimborne Minster, S. James, Poole and SS. Peter & Paul, Cattistock, we hope to sing in S. Michael, Stinsford where Thomas Hardy is buried. Dates are 15–22 July.

Wonderful to be able finally to launch the Laudemus website on an unsuspecting community of choral singers. Thanks to two valuable tenors – Nick Tollemache and Simon Ashdown – for all their help in overcoming the technical ignorance of the Laudemus administrator!

After many months in gestation this website looks as if it might be functioning shortly; we will at last have somewhere to direct people if they want to know more about us.

And plans for the 2017 tour are starting to take shape, with two new churches to visit.  Someone said a few years back that we would soon run out of churches which would welcome Choral Evensong – thankfully that has not happened yet.