7.30pm, Friday 10 May 2024
Hampstead Parish Church, NW3 6UU

Bhuddist Bells

Performers

The LFCCM Festival Singers
Joshua Ryan Organ
Alastair Carey Direction

Programme

A concert of meditations on prayers for peace in times of conflict, featuring sacred music by Stephen Dodgson in his 100th anniversary year and Ronald Corp’s Dhammapada, a selection of Bhuddist scripture verses set to music for choir accompanied by pre-recorded bells and gongs.

Stephen Dodgson

Stephen Dodgson Stephen Dodgson was born in London in 1924 and lived there with few interruptions all his life. He was educated at Stowe and served in the Royal Navy during World War II. He received his musical training at the Royal College of Music, and was subsequently for many years a member of its teaching staff in theory and composition. He started working at the College in the Junior Department where he also conducted the orchestra, for which he wrote several pieces. In 1950 he lived in Italy on a scholarship.

From 1957 he was often employed by the BBC; as provider of incidental music for many major drama productions, as well as a frequent and familiar broadcaster of reviews and other musical topics.

Stephen’s output is prolific and his compositions cover almost every genre, including opera (Margaret Catchpole, 1979), seven piano sonatas, nine string quartets, and much other chamber music. There is also a substantial body of music for symphony orchestra and many concertos with chamber orchestra. His large output of vocal music ranges from a Magnificat and a Te Deum for chorus, soloists and orchestra, through to music for unaccompanied choir and songs for one or two singers with instrumental accompaniment. As Chairman of The National Youth Wind Orchestra for many years, Stephen also wrote music for this and other wind orchestras. For the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble he wrote and arranged music for various combinations of brass instruments. He is, however, probably best known worldwide for his numerous works for guitar. His interest in this instrument was prompted by Julian Bream.

Much of this music has now been recorded, including six orchestral Essays, all the String Quartets, a String Sextet, Quintets for Clarinet, Flute and Guitar, all the Piano Sonatas, Bagatelles, and Piano Trios, other chamber and vocal music, and most of the guitar music.

Ronald Corp

Ronald Corp, OBE, SSC is a composer, conductor, and Anglican priest. He is founder and artistic director of the New London Orchestra (NLO) and the New London Children’s Choir. Ronald is musical director of The London Chorus, a position he took up in 1994, and is also musical director of Highgate Choral Society. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to music.

He has worked with the BBC Singers, the BBC Concerto Orchestra and various orchestras in the United Kingdom and abroad. Among an extensive discography are his award-winning Hyperion discs of British Light Music Classics. His own compositions include four symphonies, two piano concertos, concertos for flute recorder and cello, three string quartets and a clarinet quintet. His choral works include large sacred cantatas (including And all the trumpets sounded) and shorter works for unaccompanied choir including Dover Beach, commissioned for the BBC Singers. He has written over one hundred songs and significant cycles include Fields of the Fallen and Letters from Lony as well as the scena The Yellow Wallpaper. His operas include The Ice Mountain (for children) and The Pelican.

His experience and expertise in choral directing are crystallised in the textbook The Choral Singer’s Companion, which is now in its third edition.

Ronald attended the Southern Theological Education and Training Scheme to prepare for the priesthood. He was ordained in the Church of England as a deacon in 1998 and a priest in 1999. From 1998 to 2002, he served as a non-stipendiary minister (NSM) of St Mary’s Church, Kilburn, London. From 2002 to 2007, he served as a NSM at St Mary’s Church, Hendon. Since 2007, he has served as a NSM at the Church of St Alban the Martyr, Holborn. He is a member of the Society of the Holy Cross (SSC).

Alastair Carey

Alastair Carey Alastair Carey has been involved in choral performance since the age of six. He has performed, recorded and broadcast throughout the United Kingdom and Europe, appearing as a vocal performer with ensembles including The Gabrieli Consort, The Oxford Camerata, The Brabant Ensemble, and The Nederlandse Bachvereniging in performances ranging from the BBC Proms to the Leipzig Bach Festival. As a conductor, Alastair has directed concerts in Asia, Australasia, Europe, and throughout the United Kingdom, including award-winning performances at competitions in the European Grand Prix in Spain and the World Choir Games in South Korea.

Joshua Ryan

Australian organist and accompanist Joshua Ryan is a prize-winning graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied as a Bicentenary Scholar under Professor David Titterington. Joshua is quickly establishing himself as one of his generation’s most exciting interpreters of Olivier Messiaen’s organ works, having performed almost all of Messiaen’s religious suites and standalone works. He is currently Organist and Assistant Director of Music of Hampstead Parish Church, Organist of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London, and accompanist of Dulwich Choral Society.

Joshua’s musical interests are diverse and wide ranging. He has worked across Europe and Australia as a soloist, accompanist, and continuo player with a vast array of conductors, singers, choirs, and ensembles including The Academy of Ancient Music, London Mozart Players, Sydney Chamber Choir, Allegri Ensemble, Philippe Herreweghe, John Butt, Rachel Podger, Edward Gardner, Susan Landale, David Ponsford, Hans Davidsson, Eamonn Dougan, Nicky Spence, and Nicholas Mullroy. Joshua has also featured on four critically acclaimed discs as the accompanist with the Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea and William Vann, recorded for the SOMM and Albion labels. Reviews by BBC Radio 3 have described his accompanying as “wonderful and beautiful” and “full of colour.”

Alongside Joshua’s performance career, he is also a musical researcher. He is the curator of The Mulliner Project, a significant research project on the reinterpretation of the music of The Mulliner Book on a range of historical and modern instruments. More information about the project is available at themullinerproject.com.

The LFCCM Festival Singers

The Festival’s own professional vocal ensemble, The LFCCM Festival Singers, expands and augments the Choir of St Pancras Parish Church with additional singers from London’s world-class choral institutions. Most members of the ensemble have come from a collegiate background and gone on to study as postgraduate students at one of the London conservatoires. This combination of superb sight-reading and world-class vocal training gives the group tremendous flexibility, enabling the performance of a repertory that spans five centuries: ranging from motets from the Eton Choirbook to new commissions by composers such as Roxanna Panufnik, Michael Berkeley, Cecilia McDowall, Howard Skempton, Michael Finnissy, Gabriel Jackson, Francis Pott, Sebastian Forbes, Francis Grier, Kerry Andrew, Antony Pitts, and many more.