EX CATHEDRA

Director Jeffrey Skidmore

Tuesday 4th December St Chad's Church, 7.30pm

With the kind permission of the Vicar and the PCC of St Chad's

"Christmas by Candlelight"

Reading: Christmas was coming - David Herbert Lawrence

Every star shall sing a carol (Sydney Carter)
My soul there is a country (Charles Hubert Hastings Parry)
I thank you God for most this amazing day (Eric Whilacre)

Reading: Home for Christmas - Elizabeth Bowen

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day (English Traditional)

Reading: The Christmas Tree - Cecil Day-Lewis

Oak (Alec Roth)
The Holly and the Ivy (English Traditional)
There is a flower (John Rutter)

Reading: For, after the gospels - Ben Okri

Cantate Domino (John Cotterill)
Welcome, Yule! (David Wulstan)

Reading: My heart is like a singing bird - Christina Rossetti

Three Songs for Christmas: He comes in the night, How will you your Christmas keep?, With a merry ding dong (Martin Bates)

Reading: Mystery - Basil Hume

Mirabile misterium (Malcolm Hayes)
Riu, riu chin: El lobo rabioso (Villancicos de diversos autores 1556)
In tua memoria (Arnold de Lantins)

Reading: Prayer - Wystan Hugh Auden

Hymn to the virgin (Benjamin Britten)
O magnum mysterium (Morten Lauridsen)

Reading: I cannot tell why he whom angels worship - William Young Fullerton

I wonder as I wander (Appalachian Folk Carol)
Bethlehem Down (Peter Warlock)
Away in a manger (William J. Kirkpatrick)

Reading: It was a pretty sight - Kenneth Grahame

Joy in the morning (John Joubert)

Reading: How could the soul not take flight - Jalal ad-Din Rumi

The Darkling Thrush (Fyfe Hutchins)
Rise up, my love (Howard Skempton)
How shall I fitly meet thee? (Johann Sebastian Bach)

Soprano - Helen Arthur, Hannah Atherton, Marianne Ayling, Gemma Busfield, Pippa Buxton, Joy Krishnamoorthy, Margaret Langford, Shirley Scott, Katie Trethewey
Alto - Derek Acock, James Armitage, Christopher Field, Amy Maclean, Matthew Reeve, Jill Robinson, Helen Shilvock
Tenor - Samuel Boden, Stephen Davis, Julian Forbes, Peter Trethewey
Bass - Marcus Farasworlh, Jonathan Gibbs, Richard Green, Nicholas Perfect, Bill Robinson, Callum Thorpe

Readers - James Armitage, Helen Arthur, Pippa Buxton, Alice Corser, Jonathan Gibbs, Amy Maclean, Nicholas Perfect, Jill Robinson Shirley Scott, Callum Thorpe

Jeffrey Skidmore

Jeffrey Slddmore is one of the country's foremost choral conductors and is highly regarded by instrumentalists, singers and audiences for the high quality of his performances. He is well-known for exciting programming which is often challenging but always accessible. Jeffrey read music at Magdalen College, Oxford, before returning to his native Birmingham to develop Ex Cathedra into the internationally-acclaimed choral group it has become today.

Directing Ex Cathedra and its associated Baroque Orchestra and Consort, Jeffrey has appeared in concert series and festivals across the UK and abroad and made a dozen highly-acclaimed recordings. He regularly conducts other ensembles, including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Singers and the Hanover Band. In the last five years Jeffrey has commissioned more than ten new works and conducted many world premieres by both well-established composers and new, young talent Composers include Fyfe Hutchins, Gabriel Jackson, John Joubert, Daryl Runswick, Peter Sculthorpe, Philip Sheppard, Peter Wiegold, and Roderick Williams.

In the field of opera he has worked with Marc Minkowski and David McVicker on the 2004 production of 'Semele' at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris, and conducted 'La Calisto', 'Dido and Aeneas', 'Pygmalion' and 'The Fairy Queen' at Birmingham Conservatoire. With Ex Cathedra he gave the first performances in modern times of the French Baroque operas 'Zaide' by Royer and Isis by Lully.

Jeffrey is a pioneer in the field of research and performance of neglected choral works of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and has won wide acclaim in particular for his recordings of French and Latin American Baroque music with Ex Cathedra for Hyperion. An Honorary Fellow at Birmingham Conservatoire and a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, he has prepared new performing editions of works by Araujo, Charpentier, Lalande, Monteverdi and Rameau.

Jeffrey is Artistic Director of the Early Music Programme at Birmingham Conservatoire and Director of Ex Cathedra's wide-reaching education programme. He frequently gives choral training workshops and teaches at summer schools in the UK and overseas. He has regularly directed the choral programme at Darlington International Summer School and was Classical Music Programmer for the 2005 Kilkenny Festival.

Ex Cathedra

From its home in Birmingham, Ex Cathedra has established an international reputation as a leading UK choir and Early Music ensemble. Under founder and Artistic Director, Jeffrey Skidmore, Ex Cathedra is known for its vibrant performances and a passion for seeking out not only the best but the unfamiliar and the unexpected in the choral repertoire. Since its formation in 1969, Ex Cathedra has grown into a unique musical resource, comprising specialist choir, vocal consort of ten voices, period-instrument orchestra and thriving education programme.

Recent years have seen a major increase in Ex Cathedra's national and international reputation thanks to its trail-blazing performances of Early Music - in particular the French and Latin American Baroque - and its role as a leading exponent of choral training and vocal skills education.

Ex Cathedra presents its own subscription season of concerts, which spans music from the fifteenth to twenty-first centuries, in the West Midlands and London. In addition. Ex Cathedra receives a growing number of invitations to appear at festivals and concert series in the UK and abroad. Recent performances include the Santiago de Compostela, Lufthansa, Salisbury, Aranjuez, Aldeburgh, Chelsea, Lichfield and The Three Choirs festivals. Forthcoming appearances this autumn include Malvern Concerts Club, Shrewsbury, Leamington Spa, Hagley and the Stratford-on-Avon and Canterbury festivals.

Ex Cathedra records for Hyperion Records; a third disc of Latin American Baroque music - 'Fire Burning in Snow' - is forthcoming and follows the tremendous success of 'New World Symphonies' and 'Moon, Sun And All Things', both best-selling CDs. Other Hyperion releases include Rameau arias with Carolyn Sampson; a Charpenlier disc including 'Messe a quatre choeurs' and 'Salve Regina a trois choeurs'; and 'Peerson: Latin Motets'. The group has also released discs of Vivaldi, Lalande, Lassus and Monteverdi on the ASV Gaudeamus label, and two very popular discs on its own label.

Last Updated : 07/12/2007