Concerts

Previous Concerts:

Saturday 3rd July 2004, 7.30pm
Birmingham Cathedral

Review by Clare Mackney (Birmingham Post) 

Birmingham has a securely established and flourishing choral life that leaves few obvious niches for newcomers.  As the latest arrival on the scene, the Colmore Consort has met this challenge head on with a package that is compact, high quality and specialised.  And the strategy has worked - these performers really are very, very good.

Enormous physical and emotional power - almost heart-stopping from so small an ensemble - was the first quality to hit Saturday night's audience, in the opening choral shout of Howells' A Sequence for St Michael.  The source of the richness, clarity and resonance in this sound is clearly the calibre of individual voices, as revealed by the sixteen fine soloists in Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music.

This same heady combination of vigour and control was evident in Jonathan Pitkin's Esto Mihi and throughout Leighton's unforgiving Mass for Double Choir, but it was the consistency of the sensitive, meticulous phrasing that was the Consort's supreme strength, at its most affecting in Dove's lovely Seek him.

Driving these remarkable performances was Charles Janz's understated but effective direction, securing impressively tight teamwork between conductor, singers and organist Christopher Allsop.  In the future some relaxation of this intensity may allow tenderness and warmth to low more freely but in the meantime the Colmore Consort has made its point - it is a force to be reckoned with, and hopefully, one to stay.

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Saturday 1st May 2004, 7.30pm
Birmingham Cathedral

Review by Jim Page (Finzi Friends Vice Chairman)

For one who spends a lot of time listening to premier, first, second, third and fourth division choral societies, it was like a breath of fresh air to hear this amazing concert. Janz has assembled a wonderfully talented group, and his control of them, and especially their vast range of dynamics, was impressive. And what a line of sopranos, all better than your average soloist!

I was really moved by the Howells Requiem, a composer I have only begun to appreciate in the last few years. And the Finzi [Magnificat] was good - I just love that Amen ending, and always smile at the thought of Gerald writing it in the back of the car on the way to take it to Boosey's, to meet a deadline. As for the Matthews [The Ship of Death]! These musicians are amazing people... just how do they get that off the page? I'm glad I'm a listener.

CD available - To order click here

Click here to listen to audio clips of the concert

Saturday 7th February 2004, 7.30pm
Birmingham Cathedral

Review in the Birmingham Post
(Paul Spicer)                    

The Colmore Consort is a chamber choir of twenty singers newly formed by Charles Janz, organ scholar at St Philip's Cathedral and a post-graduate choral conducting student at the Birmingham Conservatoire.  He is an enterprising man with a sense of vision which was musically very much in evidence at this fine concert given by a choir which, if developed, will give Ex Cathedra a serious run for its money. The singers are all either singing students or young professionals.

They began with Walton's brilliant Coronation Te Deum. This is a work written for massed choirs and orchestra. It works equally well when performed by smaller forces with organ (outstandingly played by Christopher Allsop) when those forces can sing with the kind of punch and rhythmic vitality which Janz coaxed from his singers. He was particularly blessed with a tenor section who positively lit up when given their high B flat towards the end.

The baritone soloist in Vaughan Williams's Five Mystical Songs was Danny Whatmough who came out of the choir to sing them (demonstrating the vocal quality of the group as a whole). He delivered these beautiful, reflective pieces without music and with heartfelt directness. He has a light quality, beautiful voice which was ideal for these quintessential English reveries. The choir supported with tender subtlety. There was some tendency here to overindulge the emotion of the music but these are young people, and I remember being criticised for just such misdemeanors when I was in my twenties. Rather that than skate over the ebb and flow of Vaughan Williams' extraordinary lyrical outpouring.

After the interval the choir performed James MacMillan's powerful Cantos Sagrados in which he deals, through the poetry of Ariel Dorfman in the outer movements, with issues of political repression in Latin America, in particular, the 'disappearance' of political prisoners. The second movement 'Virgin of Guadaloup' sets a powerful poem by Ana Maria Mendoza which deals with graphic examples of political repression in Spain. This is a tough work with complex rhythmic challenges and a highly independent and percussive organ part. The choir rose to these challenges with obvious relish, aided by extremely cool and clear direction from Janz who obviously related very strongly to this musical idiom.

This was a refreshing concert amongst all the choral offerings which abound in Birmingham. The group is urged to continue, and audiences are encouraged to experience them first-hand. Not many graced the nave of St Philip's for this inaugural concert. It is to be much hoped that this will change for their next concert on May 1^st.