|  | | | | | The end of an era - the choir's tribute to Maureen who retired as Music Director & Conductor in Oct 2010 It is eleven years since Maureen Twiddy first took over as Musical Director of the Kington Choral Society and now, sadly but understandably, she has decided that the October 2010 Haydn performance will be her last. During her time with Kington Choral she has patiently but firmly coached, cajoled, coaxed and eventually drawn from us the very best we had to give for the thirty or more performances featuring 44 works by 29 different composers which included Dvorak, Bach, Beethoven, Bizet, Haydn, Handel, Mozart and Mendelssohn. She has been highly valued as a dedicated, single-minded conductor, with great musical insight, a thorough knowledge of concert repertory and a clear mastery of hand and body gestures, combined with an understanding of, and sympathy towards, both the work being performed and the singers striving to perform it. Before joining Kington Choral, Maureen had wide experience with Choral Societies both in this country and abroad, as both singer and Musical Director. She felt immensely privileged, through many years singing with the Philharmonia Chorus, London, to have been trained and guided by Wilhelm Pitz, Walter Hagen-Groll and Norbert Balatsch. But she is reticent about having her musical achievements enumerated here, firmly believing that what you are and do now is what counts, not what you’ve done in the past – a sentiment with which many people will agree. However, no matter how much she may protest, we feel it appropriate to mention that she has sung well in excess of two hundred concerts and taken part in eleven recordings, under the baton of numerous well known conductors, including Klemperer, Guilini, Frühbeck de Burgos, Maazel, Solti, Ozawa, Muti, to name but a few. Venues at home have included over 100 concerts in the Royal Festival Hall, and 10 in the Royal Albert Hall, London; and prestigious venues too numerous to mention, across Europe from Gothenburg, Sweden to Lisbon, Portugal. As she herself says: ‘It is on the back of this experience, I have always felt a strong sense of duty, that if one has been so privileged, one should do one’s best to try and pass on to others, who may never have had the opportunity or confidence to sing in a choir, both the pain and sheer joy of succeeding in learning challenging choral works and experiencing the satisfaction of knowing that you’d done your best.’ Moving to Saudi Arabia for six years gave Maureen the opportunity to put this into practice, where she was MD for an international, expatriate chorus and chamber orchestra, performing many of our much loved choral works, including Handel’s “Well known Oratorio” (remember this was performed in Jeddah!). It only remains, on behalf of all members who know, love and admire Maureen, to thank her for all the time she has so generously and unstintingly devoted to Kington Choral, enabling us to experience, not only the agony, but the inestimable pleasure and sense of achievement of which she speaks, and to wish her all the very best in her well-deserved retirement. October 2010 ANTONIN DVORAK – REQUIEM ST MARY'S CHURCH, KINGTON 7.30 pm Saturday, 20 October 2007 Angharad Morgan, Soprano; Martha McLorinan, Alto; Michael Clee, Tenor; Craig Yates, Baritone;
Peter Dyke, Organ; Maureen Twiddy, Conductor; Kington Choral Society Review for Mid-Wales Journal by Alan Soper What an interesting experience it is to travel to a new venue to review a musical work. Familiar music, a disciplined choir, the usual reverence for the piece and the setting and yet every face unknown, the familiar in unfamiliar territory – rather like coming across a branch of Woolworths in Barcelona. What I found on Saturday evening, from my corner of this foreign field, was an unexpected intimacy with my new surroundings – drawn, bit by bit, by Maureen Twiddy’s sensitive interpretation of Dvorak’s Requiem Mass. Under her direction, we, in our large full church, were treated to a fine, disciplined rendition of Dvorak’s great work, full of dynamic, effective changes of mood and sensitive singing. Angharad Morgan’s fine soprano voice was a perfect fit for the solo and semi-chorus ensemble passages and she brought an extra ethereal quality to her final solo in the Agnus Dei. Craig Yates’ resonant baritone voice brought a depth of feeling and clarity, achieving great sensitivity in the Hostias passage of the Offertorium. Michael Clee presented an accomplished tenor voice with confidence and sensitivity. I was captivated by the mezzo soprano voice of Martha McLorinan who, from the first, sang with a clarity and depth of feeling so suited to a Requiem, perfectly expressed in the Tuba mirum and in just a bar or two of her “dona eis requiem” in the Lacrimosa. I was impressed by these soloists and by their feeling for each other. The ensemble and semi-chorus singing was frequently brilliant, especially between Angharad Morgan and Martha McLorinan. Choirs often get little rehearsal time with their soloists, but this Requiem makes many demands on the choral integration of the soloists with the chorus. Kington Choral Society handled this extremely well and the passing of phrases to and from the choir and the soloists was seamless and very supportive of the mood, especially in the Benedictus and the final Agnus Dei. The choir presented to us the familiar mix of uniform dress, slightly advanced years and too few men! However, what struck me about Kington was their rigour in discipline, diction and presentation and their extraordinary singing of the quieter and more sensitive passages. Given the shortage of male singers – although well supported by some lady tenors – the choice of a work like the Dvorak Requiem could have seemed ambitious, given several tenor and bass splits but, with the exception of a rather light Dies Irae, the choir compensated very well. They sang the dissonances with assurance and brought the resolutions with appropriate relief rather than over confidence, especially in the Pie Jesu. Peter Dyke was brilliantly supportive and competent on an organ whose resonance sometimes seemed not quite up to the lowest notes. My feelings at the end of this long work were of a sense that I had listened in to the group’s heart and soul. I felt they were there for me rather than I for them. They sang as if they wanted to give, not just to enjoy and consummate a lot of Monday night practices and yet had an obvious pleasure and feeling for the work. Kington Choral Society, and especially Maureen Twiddy, are to be congratulated. It then being about ten minutes after the end of the England-South Africa Rugby World Cup final, someone had found out the score. It was fitting that we had just listened to such a fine Requiem. JOSEPH HAYDN: THE SEASONS. ST MARY’S CHURCH, KINGTON 7.30pm, Saturday, 16 June 2007. Gemma Busfield, soprano; Michael Clee, tenor; Matthew Wright, baritone. Ronnie Krippner, organ; Michael Channon, harpsichord.
Kington Choral Society. Maureen Twiddy, conductor. Review for the Mid-Wales Journal by John Rushby-Smith. Haydn’s oratorio The Seasons was written late in the composer’s life, when he was at the height of his powers. It followed his triumph with The Creation, and sets a text translated and adapted by his librettist Baron von Swieten from a long and wordy poem by the 18th century English poet James Thomson. The Seasons is essentially a secular celebration of the wonders of nature. It is a rustic romp that encompasses birdsong and thunderstorms, burgeoning crops and bountiful harvests, hunting expeditions and drunken revelry, all bathed in an occasional glow of reverential respect for a bountiful Creator that was grafted on to the original text mainly to keep the devout happy. The story is told through the voices of its three characters, Jane (soprano), Lucas (tenor) and Simon (bass), and their enthusiasm for all things natural is reinforced by vivid choral writing that lifts the work on to a plane far higher than that suggested by the text, whose banalities Haydn rather disparaged. The performance in Kington Parish Church under the direction of Maureen Twiddy was highly accomplished, with apt choice of tempi and laudable attention to detail. All three soloists displayed their vocal prowess with great aplomb and sensitive musicality. Gemma Busfield’s Jane was crystal clear, beautifully poised and vocally alluring; Michael Clee as Lucas was every inch the handsome rural swain and he produced some wonderful lyrical singing, while Matthew Wright as Simon was a suitably imposing master of seasonal ceremony and revealed a knack for telling his story with great clarity. In the recitatives, harpsichordist Michael Channon accompanied with elegant panache. The obviously well-rehearsed Kington Choral Society brought gusto and praiseworthy precision to the complex choruses. Their diction was excellent and their intonation rarely faltered, the sopranos pinging out top B flats with commendable confidence. This was choral singing of a standard quite remarkable for a town as small as Kington. Their platform manner was disciplined, their appearance crisp. Conductor Maureen Twiddy had clearly got to grips with Haydn’s witty and dramatic score, and she displayed the telling yet economical command of the true musician she surely is. Guest organist Ronnie Krippner’s attempts to represent Haydn’s colourful, symphonic orchestration on the church’s instrument were less convincing, however, and sometimes left the singers without proper support. What a pity the Society’s budget denied us the pleasure of hearing what they might have achieved had they been able to afford an orchestra. That small caveat apart, it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Bravo all! |
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