John Rutter (1945 - )
John Rutter has been writing music since he was 24, mostly choral works including a large number of hymns and carols. He said of his arrangements of the well known traditional songs included in these two song cycles,
"For children growing up in postwar England as I did, traditional songs form a common musical currency. These songs brought me delight and pleasure then, and they still do now. Though pleasure has become tinged with nostalgia because, for the most part, they are forgotten and gone from our lives, perhaps forever." We are doing our best to make sure this is untrue and that it remains so! 

The songs included in "the sprig of thyme" cycle are:
    The bold grenadier,
    The keel row,
    The willow tree,
    The sprig of thyme,
    Down by the sally gardens,
    The cuckoo,
    I know where I'm going,
    Willow song,
    O can ye sew cushions,
    The miller of Dee, and
    Afton water.

The 5 traditional song cycle includes:
    The girl I left behind me,
    O waly waly,
    The British grenadiers,
    Golden slumbers, and
    Dashing away with the smoothing iron.

Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958)
Vaughan Williams wrote this cycle of 6 songs for unison voices in 1939, based on selections of texts from poems by Shelley. They were a BBC commission and were to have been performed at the 1940 Proms, hence their instructional sub-title. Unfortunately, due to the war, the Proms that year were cancelled. The songs had their premier as a broadcast concert in the December.







Karl Jenkins (1944 - )
Karl Jenkins has a highly eclectic background in music. His early career involved him performing as an oboist with the National Youth Orchstra. He then was a member of several Jazz and Rock bands where he played saxaphone, keyboard, as well as the oboe. In 1972 he joined the progressive rock band "Soft Machine", a group which so pushed the boundaries of rock music that they performed at the Proms. His piece "The armed man : A Mass for peace" was commissioned by the Royal Armouries to be performed at millenium celebrations in 2000. Like Brittain's War requiem, the piece is essentially anti-war and it was dedicated to the suffering people of Kosovo. The choral suite we are performing is a subset made by the composer and includes the Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei, and Hymn Before Action sections only of the full work.

We will be accompanied in this concert by:

David Houlder (organ)

A native of Preston, David Houlder has had close associations with Merseyside for many years.
Jim Wrightson (conductor)