Sunday 25th July - 6.30pm
St Mellitus Church, Tollington Park N4 3AG
We accompanied the London Medical Orchestra

with Fiona Hymn, soprano; Hamish Brown, organ

Richard Wagner Prelude to
  Die Meistersinger von 

  Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Leos Janáček Říkadla

Gabriel Fauré Requiem

Download the concert programme here.

For more information please contact us.

The orchestra performed the rousing Prelude to Wagner's Meistersinger. The choir joined them for Fauré's wonderful, consoling Requiem, and for the world premier of our conductor Oliver Till's arrangement of Janáček's Říkadla. 

Here is what Ollie says about this charming piece:

"Říkadlo (pl. Říkadla) comes from the Czech verb říkat (to say) and describes a genre of children's literature consisting of short nonsense rhymes, where the humour is based on sound, absurdities and word games.
 Leoš Janáček initially wrote 8 songs (Říkadla) in the summer of 1925 and he obviously enjoyed the process as the following year he expanded it to 18 songs and an instrumental introduction. Each song is inspired by a cartoon from his favourite newspaper: Lidové Noviny (The People’s News), the oldest Czech daily still in print, and Říkadla is actually the third of Janáček's works to be inspired by this newspaper after a song cycle and an opera.

"The laughable original orchestration complements the tone and content of the rhymes, and this new arrangement sets the work for a small orchestra and choir. The new English version by Benedict Pope was commissioned for this concert and aims to save the childlike element as well as meaning & rhyme from the original."