Tag: Evensong in Dorset

Laudemus! tour: five weeks to go

Marianne Barton

In just over five weeks’ time, 30 singers will assemble in Blandford Forum ready for our 34th annual Choral Evensong tour of Dorset. As usual, the tour encompasses five different churches – Stalbridge, Swanage, Gussage All Saints, Symondsbury (a first visit) and Wimborne – offering services which combine Archbishop Cranmer’s beautiful prose with music spanning six centuries. For full details of what music we are singing in each church, please click 2024 Tour on the top menu bar.

We have a full complement of young choral scholars, funded through the generosity of the Michael James Music Trust, the Wimborne Minster Musical Heritage Trust, the Ann Jane Green Trust and donations from hundreds of well-wishers. All we need now is for the sun to continue to shine!

Jigsaw complete!

Marianne Barton

We now have a full complement of choral scholars for this year’s course, and look forward tremendously to another week of glorious choral evensong music in beautiful Dorset churches.

If you are visiting Dorset in mid August, click 2023 Tour on the menu bar to see where we will be singing between 15th and 19th August, and what the music will be. Choral evensong is a uniquely wonderful experience, and not to be missed.

Dates for 2022

Marianne Barton

With fingers crossed that our plans will not be scuppered by further variants of the COVID-19 virus, we are delighted to announce our tour dates for this summer: 14–21 August 2022. As usual, Jeremy Jackman will direct and Sam Hanson will be our organist. Music and churches have yet to be chosen, but the music will doubtless include a tribute to the Emeritus Organist of York Minster, Francis Jackson, who died on Monday 10 January aged 104. A great musician and a wonderful man – RIP.

New dates: 8–15 August 2021

Marianne Barton

Jigsaw now complete – all four sides firmly in place (thank you, Bryanston School!) and all bar two of the inside pieces fitting nicely. We are immensely grateful to the singers who re-arranged their diaries to accommodate the new dates. Almost all the originally booked churches were able to take us during August; we were left with a gap on Thursday, but the lovely people at Wimborne Minster invited us to make two appearances there this year.

Visit the 2021 Tour page to see where we are going and the anthems and canticles to be sung. All we need now is some summer weather!

A numbers game …

Marianne Barton

… or a question of extensions. Plus two weeks and Laudemus! this summer goes ahead as planned. Plus three weeks, and our fate hangs in the balance, dependent on guidelines given by the DCMS and the Church of England. Plus four weeks and existing plans collapse; we go back to the diary and try and reschedule the whole thing for August instead. Some game!

All in place for July!

Marianne Barton

Not only do we now have singers, delighted at the thought of singing again, but we also have places to sing! This year we look forward to a welcome at churches in Sturminster Newton – an old favourite; Milton Abbey – a repeat visit; Cranborne – not visited for some years;  Puddletown – a new experience; and – as ever – Wimborne Minster, dedicated to St Cuthburga who is celebrated in that evening’s anthem. You can find full details on our Tour page. Fervent hopes for no stalling in the government’s roadmap out of lockdown.

Salvaging some singing

Marianne Barton

With fingers firmly crossed, we have come up with a plan to meet in Dorset and sing Evensong this summer, in spite of Covid-19. Just one service, unaccompanied and out of doors (now there’s a challenge!), to be sung in the north-east courtyard outside Wimborne Minster. Date will be between 22 and 25 July, depending on the weather forecast. Regular updates in this slot.