Repertoire
SPS has an extensive repertoire of sacred and secular choral music spanning five centuries from 16th-century English and Continental polyphony to works by contemporary composers. New works were composed by Michael Hurd in honour of the choir's tenth anniversary in 1987 - Genesis & A Secular Anthem - and a setting of the Stabat Mater was commissioned from Dr Francis Jackson, organist emeritus of York Minster, for the singers' 20th anniversary in 1997. The choir has established a reputation for performances of the music of Bach and Handel in conjunction with Saint Peter's Chamber Orchestra. In recent years SPS has pioneered performances of the two monodramas with music by Francis Jackson - Daniel in Babylon and A Time of Fire. Both works have been recorded by Amphion. Recent performances by St Peter's Singers have involved Messiah (Handel) at Leeds College of Music in December 2008 with soloists led by treble William Dutton, now a pupil at the Yehudi Menuhin School and The Dream of Gerontius at Leeds Parish Church on Good Friday, 2009 when the choir welcomed former members as friends as guests and were accompanied by the National Festival Orchestra.
The singers are concerned with the annual Fulneck Baroque Weekend in August each season in the 18th-century Moravian Church at Fulneck, Pudsey, and have performed major works by Bach and Handel each year since 2007.
The choir visited Birmingham Town Hall in March 2010 to perform a programme of 'Sacred Choral Classics' as guests of city organist Thomas Trotter in his Monday Lunchtime Concert Series. Israel in Egypt by Handel with St Peter's Chamber Orchestra and soloists was presented at Leeds Town Hall in February 2011. On Bank Holiday 2011, the Singers presented Mass in B minor by J S Bach with soloists including Kristina James, Lucy Appleyard, Toby Ward and Quentin Brown. Instrumental soloists included violinist Mary Huby, flautist Michael Short and horn Robert Ashworth from Opera North. In 2012, the Town Hall Lunchtime Concert by the Singers on Monday 13 February featured music by Yorkshire born composers George Oldroyd and George Dyson alongside works by Sir Edward Bairstow. 2013 at the Town Hall saw a complete performance in English of Bach's St John Passion. St Peter's Singers participated in Summer 2012 at the Fulneck Baroque weekend presenting Church Music Classics by Haydn and Mozart including Haydn's Nelson Mass and motets by Mozart on August Bank Holiday Monday. Handel's Israel in Egypt is the work of choice for August Holiday Monday 2013 - 26 August at Fulneck Church at 4.00 pm.
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Famous quotes containing the word repertoire:
“The best joke-tellers are those who have the patience to wait for conversation to come around to the point where the jokes in their repertoire have application.”
—Joseph Epstein (b. 1937)
“For good teaching rests neither in accumulating a shelfful of knowledge nor in developing a repertoire of skills. In the end, good teaching lies in a willingness to attend and care for what happens in our students, ourselves, and the space between us. Good teaching is a certain kind of stance, I think. It is a stance of receptivity, of attunement, of listening.”
—Laurent A. Daloz (20th century)