Royal College of Music professor Alison Wells is a much sought-after singing teacher who will be bringing the community together through music this Easter with a performance of Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem
The Parish of Wanstead is putting on a performance of Fauré’s Requiem at St Mary’s Church, Overton Drive, on Friday 18 April, which is Good Friday. The performance of this glorious and deservedly popular piece will begin at 12 noon and is part of the liturgical observations on this most important day in the Church calendar.
Gabriel Fauré composed his Requiem between 1887 and 1890. Fauré wrote of the work: “Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.”
Some of you may remember coming to St Mary’s two years ago on Good Friday for a performance of Stainer’s Crucifixion, which featured a choir of about 40 singers and two professional soloists, and was very well attended. It was a very moving occasion, and we are very happy to be able to put on another wonderful piece of music this year.
We’re especially happy to be joined by the choir of St Mary’s Woodford (Director of Music Douglas Knight) and we would love other singers from across the community to join us for this occasion. All we ask is that you commit to at least three out of the four rehearsals so we can give the best performance we can. We look forward to welcoming you, so please do sign up for this event if you would like to take part.
There is a strong musical tradition in the Parish of Wanstead and we have a choir of about 25 members regularly singing at Evensongs on the second Sunday of every month. The choir sang Evensong at Southwark Cathedral at the end of January, and we will be visiting our diocesan cathedral in Chelmsford on 5 April for Evensong, when we’ll be singing an all-female-composer programme of King’s College Evening Service by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange and A Prayer of St Columba by Cecilia MacDowall. We always welcome new members to the choir, so do get in touch if you would like to join us.
Our other singing group, The Forget-me-not Choir, meets on a Friday morning at St Mary’s, and new members are welcome here as well. The group’s repertoire ranges from folk songs and sea shanties to rock songs, pop songs, classical songs and some sacred pieces too. We have a lot of fun and the social aspect of the meetings is highly valued by our members. If you fancy giving that a try, just come along any Friday at 10.30am.
And don’t forget to look out for our third annual May Music Festival, which takes place at St Mary’s on the late Bank Holiday weekend in May. More information about that in the May issue.
For more information on the event and to take part, call 07802 701 268
