Conductor and singer Deborah Miles-Johnson has long directed the award-winning and much-travelled Imperial Male Voice Choir. In 2016 she formed Gloriana, a talented women’s voices ensemble. And now she combines the two groups to sing Music from Heaven! starting with a glorious 16-part Gabrieli motet, followed by all sorts of treats including Poulenc’s Ave Verum Corpus, Gjeilo’s Ubi Caritas, atmospheric Schubert and Mozart’s Masonic cantata. Plus settings of Ave Maria from both Bruckner and Biebl and arresting solos in Brahms’ Regina Coeli and Weill’s Der Kanonensong along with a new commission – Starsong – from Chris Cook, written specially for Gloriana.
Later in the programme Mars, with martial music, drinking songs and swinging numbers from the shows, is in conjunction with Venus, singing like a nightingale of love and the gentle arts. All rounded off with a tumultuous finale of two choirs, piano and mighty organ!
