Programme
Tallis – Spem in alium
Brahms – Geistliches Lied
Bruckner – Motets
Schubert – Mass in G
Lea Singers
Choir of Somerville College, Oxford
Benjamin Goodson Conductor
Performers
The Lea Singers are a Harpenden-based chamber choir of 30 singers. Their aims are to achieve high standards of singing and performance, and to contribute to the local community. In 2014 they launched a Summer Singing Festival, to create an event where local singers meet, discover and sing together.
Their annual programme typically includes 6-8 concerts in the Harpenden area and further afield, a cathedral tour, open singing days and the occasional recording. The singers come from a wide range of musical backgrounds and have a thriving interns scheme for talented singers from local schools.
Over their 50 year history, the Leas have sung under 11 permanent conductors and many guests, each of whom has made a distinctive contribution to their style and repertoire. In December 2011 they appointed Benjamin Goodson to take up the baton.
The Choir of Somerville College, in its present form, was founded by Francis Knights (Director of Chapel Music) and Sam Bayliss (Organ Scholar/College Organist) in 2001. The choir sings in the college chapel every Sunday during term and performs regularly in concerts organised by Somerville Music Society. Since 2015 the choir has been conducted by Benjamin Goodson (Director of Chapel Music).
In recent years the choir has sung services and concerts at Worcester, Southwark, Winchester, Wells, Blackburn, Coventry and St. Paul’s cathedrals. In 2005 and 2009 the choir toured Germany under the patronage of Sir Peter Torry, the British ambassador to Germany, and sang services and concerts in Berlin, Potsdam and Brandenburg. A third foreign tour took the choir to Italy where the group performed in Milan, Crema and Lodi.
The choir has been involved in two opera productions (Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice) as well.
