WELCOME TO ST MARY'S

3rd August - 'Taking Flight' Serenata Ladies Voices

On Sunday 3rd August, at 7pm, we will host a performance by Serenata, a choir of around 25 ladies from around the eastern counties. Here’s some info about the performance:

 ‘Taking Flight’ an evening with Serenata Female Voices

The theme of ‘Taking Flight’ for our Summer Concert arose from a chance remark about ‘letting the choir fly’. Research into the repertoire revealed a rich seam of musical and poetic gems. Our chosen programme celebrates many aspects of flight - from mankind’s bold adventures in aeroplanes and rockets, to soaring flights of birds, buzzing of bees and fluttering butterflies. We take metaphorical flights of fancy, through hope and love, and flights of passage as we grow from child to adulthood.

Join us as we celebrate flight through inspiring words and music of poets and composers past and present. To name a few highlights: we will soar into the blue yonder with Stanford’s Bluebird, ask a Skylark for advice on love (Hoagy Carmichael / Johnny Mercer), hear the Beatles’ Blackbird singing in the dead of night and hold our breath as a fledgling Robin braves its first flight from the safety of the nest. Together we’ll travel to the moon and stars, fly across the ethereal beauty of the Arctic Tundra (through Ola Gjeilo’s dramatic imagery), and experience the power and beauty of Emily Dickinson’s ‘Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul’, in a contemporary musical setting. 

Serenata female voices is a choir of experienced singers, drawn from across the East of England, who perform music arranged for three or more female voice parts; the choir is directed by Andrew Foxley. Serenata’s music includes a wide variety of pieces and genres drawn from the 12th century up to the present day; we are also delighted to perform pieces by local composers. 

​