Perfect festival finale transported listeners to place of pure serenity

BEFORE the Tamesis concert, organist Jonathan Miall said that the acoustics in the lovely priory church were a key inspiration for the festival.

He was talking about the inaugural Music and Arts Festival at Hurley, which he has co-founded with Rev Tom Etherton and which they hope to stage every two years.

The Tamesis choir closed the festival in fine style, under the baton of their founder, Louise Rapple Moore, and accompanied superbly by Simon Dinsdale.

The programme was an eclectic one, with something to please all tastes, ranging from sacred music, O Sacrum Convivium by Thomas Tallis, to a foot-tapping My Fair Lady medley, by Frederick Loewe.

Each piece was sung with energy and verve by this small but beautifully balanced choir, comprising only 23 voices but with the gusto to fill a cathedral. The fortissimo in modern composer Colin Mawby’s powerful Ave Verum threatened to take the roof off the building.

There were several living composers featured in the programme as conductor Louise told us. John Rutter’s Wings of the Morning, based on psalm 138, and Will Todd’s Call of Wisdom were particular highlights.

But for me, the loveliest piece was Canadian composer, Eleanor Daley’s Upon your Heart, with lyrics taken from the Song of Solomon. It was performed with utter conviction, and will have transported most of its listeners to a place of pure serenity. It was followed by the glorious and multi-layered Shenandoah, also by Daley, but arranged especially for Tamesis by friend of the conductor, Andy Milburn, for whom this was a coronavirus lockdown project.

This choir is not afraid to tackle unaccompanied pieces, demanding a dramatic change of singing style, such the Beatles’ Blackbird, involving vocal percussion and enthusiastic whistling. Can’t Buy Me Love, the third of three pieces, also changed its spots, arranged in the form of a madrigal.

The acoustics were indeed perfect at St Mary the Virgin, and the concert completed a wonderful weekend of music and arts, sending its audience into the night with smiles on faces and springs in steps. Let’s hope the next Hurley festival is an equal success.