Join the choir: autumn in Kent 2023

9-12 November 2023

**PLEASE SEE UPDATED REHEARSAL & MEAL SCHEDULE BELOW**

To all playing friends and singers: full information is now here! Please consider joining us for more music-making in Kent, 9-12 November. Initial information is here now (en anglais et en Français ICI); we hope the weekend can attract some of our singers from France and Germany too (….. mais ce serait bien si quelques chanteurs représentatifs pouvaient nous rejoindre de France ou d’Allemagne).

Autumn in Kent: Choir Enrolment

As those of you who sang with us in Provence recover from the summer and heat (between exceptional ‘canicules’, fortunately), here is information about coming to SING in Kent (9 – 12 November 2023). This includes the enrolment form for choir singers this Autumn + details of the repertoire, schedule and prices (see below: there will be 2 exciting additional concerts that should appeal to you + one for you to SING in with our great slate of returning soloists). Please BOOK EARLY for best accommodation & travel options: we hope for a good attendance so that the choir sounds as great – and balanced- as it did in Seillans. We would love to welcome some of you from outside GB if you can manage to join us (some of our Germans and UK-based singers, including some who could not be in France this summer, already have!) Early Bird discount if you book & pay in full by 10 Sept!

DO COME AND SING for our music-starved GB audiences this year!

Musique Cordiale will be in Kent again for our autumn weekend 2023

This time, we are proposing to offer our Kent audiences (who missed out on the festival that they enjoyed during the Covid years in Faversham and Newnham and in the outdoor space in Doddington Place Gardens) a sense of what they missed this year. So we plan a reprise of a selection of the magnificent works performed by the festival choir and orchestra in Seillans & the Pays de Fayence this summer + a few new musical excitements to please our singers and to entice some of our fabulous instrumental players

We very much hope to see as many of our summer choir as possible back (with some other new and familiar faces) in Kent for this opportunity to perform again some of the highlights of Seillans & Callian this year

Oratorios of Handel & Mozart including
Handel’s sublime ‘Ode for the birthday of Queen Anne’ & The Mozart ‘Coronation Mass’
& more…

(Concert tickets available online and by phone: Box Office now open HERE )

We are organising another Autumn weekend of singing and playing with your favourite conductor,Graham Ross (director of music, Clare College, Cambridge) and, for our singers and players, lots of Jonathan’s cooking (plus access to some familiar and some new liquid refreshment – organic rosé, red or maybe some Kentish brew!) 

We invite you to join us in November to sing again, accompanied by a small but exclusive
Musique-Cordiale string ensemble
– with bassoons, oboes and trumpets
+ returning vocal soloists LUCY FARIMOND (soprano), CHARLOTTE KING (mezzo), JAMES HALL (counter-tenor),
AIDAN COBURN (tenor) & JOHNNY HERFORD (baritone)

UPDATE re venues. After our warm experiences in France this summer, we remind you that English churches tend to be chilly in November even if we pay for heading that tends to go way over our heads! Please come suitably equipped. It’s warmer in the Assembly Rooms where we have held smaller concerts (and meals) previously and are planning an exciting pair of ancilliary concerts over the autumn weekend; but Faversham’s Church of St Mary of Charity seems the appropriate (and lovely acoustic) setting for our bigger choral oeuvres.

Choir Accommodation: Please BOOK EARLY! So… it would help us to plan if you could let us know ASAP if you can join the choir this time.

SCHEDULE: the plan, at the latest revision:

(Our accommodation is available from afternoon of Thurs 9 November through to morning of Sun 12 Nov – or beyond. Or you can book your own locally).

• Thursday 9 November 2023 drinks from 7PM
  As before, you are invited to join us for a convivial but classy pub meal from 8PM (the Three Mariners at Oare) and drinks. Pippa has sent (2/11/23) the details and a request for menu choices to enrolled participants).

*** NOTE: TIMINGS MAY VARY (and already differ from the initial announcement on this page) ***

Friday 10 November, Faversham Assembly Rooms, ME13 8PG

Direction:  Graham Ross

• Coffee from 11AM
• 11:30 AM – 13:30: Choral Rehearsal
• (no lunch provided but local pubs etc nearby)
  ?? 13:30 – 15:50: possible rehearsal for the Sat evening performance – NOT CHOIR
• 15:45 – 17:45: CHOIR rehearsal (with tea/coffee break)
• 18:00PM: Assembly Rooms open for audience
• 19:00 (7PM) CONCERT (James Hall + strings)
  (no choir but please join the audience)
• 
• Drinks in interval (including audience) in the Assembly Rooms
• followed (after 21:30) by DINNER for choir/ensemble/ artists in Assembly Rooms

Saturday 11 November:  FAVERSHAM, Kent
(2 locations, within easy walking distance of each other & all facilities: we will advise re best parking arrangements)

• 12 noon: Church St Mary of Charity booked for us
• 14:00 – 17:00: General Choral Rehearsal (with soloists), Church of St Mary of Charity, Church Rd, Faversham, ME13 8GZ
  17:00 break (pre-concert snacks & refreshments available for choir/players in church)
• 18:00 (6PM) Church opens for audience
• 19:00 (7PM): CHORAL CONCERT in church:
  Handel & Mozart
• Drinks & refreshments for audience in interval
• after 21h (9PM) DINNER (with wine),
  Faversham Assembly Rooms, ME13 8PG

Some of the choir or orchestra may choose to leave after the concert/dinner or to stay the night and depart after breakfast on Sunday 12 Nov and/or you can enjoy the mid-day concert on Sunday and stay for lunch before leaving

FYI: Saturday night Last Train times to London after the concert

• 21.37 – 22.50 to Victoria 
• 22.00 – 23.08 to St Pancras High Speed
• 22.04 – 23.20 to Victoria 
• 22.37 – 23.50 to Victoria 
• 23.02 – 00.30 to Victoria  

Sunday 12 November: Faversham Assembly Rooms, ME13 8PG

• 11AM CONCERT (no choir but please join the audience)
  (A History of English songs through the ages)
• followed by LUNCH for choir & artists…. and departure.

• Please encourage other good singers to join/re-join us and please get your friends to buy tickets too! We need everyone to come enjoy another memorable high-calibre performance! (Tickets for the Faversham concert will be available online on this site in late September)
• And in addition….
  
• Please let us know ASAP if you are able to come and sing in Kent (the best way is to complete the enrolment form – and pay!)
• We look forward to making music together again.
  
• DETAILS FROM: Jo******@**************le.com (+44-7970-185910) or Pi***@**************le.com (+44-7976-301443)
  
  • Key Prices, November 2023
  • choir participation: £125 (‘Early Birds’: £99)
  • reductions for local singers from Kent or Provence
  • Meals & refreshments: £45 per day x 2 days (or see booking form for meal options), Sunday lunch £20
  • Annual membership from £30
  • Become a Friend (£150 or £270 for a couple)
  • Accommodation options on offer now from £50 per night per person, usually double occupancy (twins or doubles):
    First-come first-served!
    

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Concert & presentation

The COUNTER-TENOR & OTHER VOICES
Handel, Senestino, Farinelli & friends: opera for the nobility

James Hall
with Lucy Farrimond & String Quartet

7PM, Fri 10 Nov, Assembly Rooms, Preston Street, Faversham, ME13 8PG

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Choral Concert, Musique-Cordiale Festival Choir & Orchestra, conductor Graham Ross:

HANDEL
Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 2
MOZART Laudate Dominum from Solemn Vespers
HANDEL Birthday Ode for Queen Anne
MOZART Coronation Mass

7PM, Sat 11 Nov, 2023
Church of Mary of Charity,
Faversham, ME13 8GZ

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Recital: A history of English song through the ages:

Lucy Farrimond, soprano &
Aidan Coburn, tenor
Rebecca Taylor, piano

11AM, Sun 12 November,
The Assembly Rooms, Preston Street, Faversham, ME13 8PG

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