Ayr Choral Spring Concert 2016

Ayr Choral Union

Dvořák Requiem sung by large mixed voice choir and the City of Glasgow Orchestra, conducted by Gerard Doherty. Soloists are Eleanor Dennis (Soprano), Cheryl Forbes (Contralto), Jamie MacDougall (Tenor) and Arshak Kuzikyan (Bass). Dvorák’s Requiem, begun in January 1890, was less about the death of an individual than the need to write something more universally appealing about the meaning of life and death -and it was intended for the concert platform rather than the confines of church music. Its first public performance took place on 9th October 1891, in Birmingham, and it was conducted by the composer himself. The work was successively performed in a number of countries and it was regarded as a great success. Dvorák based it on the liturgical text in Latin that is usually used in the mass for the dead on All Souls’ Day, though he divided it up into thirteen sections grouped together into two parts. Four harmonic notes, a syncopated theme, reminiscent of the fleeing theme of the second Kyrie of Bach’s Mass in B minor, appear in almost all sections of the work. This is only the second time that ACU have sung this work in their 140 year history and it makes a fitting "grand work" to launch the 140th birthday celebrations See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPxHEN9lXCU Tickets from Ayr Choral Members or from Gaiety Box Office in Ayr