(including music heard at Prince Harry's)
Again we would like to invite choristers to join us to form the massed choir for our annual Hymnfest. This year's theme will consist of hymns and anthems sung at Royal Weddings. We will be singing several hymns sung at Royal Weddings including those of the Queen Mother, the Queen, Princess Margaret, Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, Prince William and Prince Harry. We will be singing most of the music from Prince Harry's recent wedding. This will include Rutter's 'The Lord Bless You and Keep You'. Rutter wrote a number of versions/editions so we are going to sing his two-part version for ease of learning and rehearsing. We will also be singing Parry's wonderful setting of Psalm 122, 'I was glad' which has been sung at a number of weddings and coronations. For those who have not sung them before, there are rehearsal recordings available online (see links below - you may need to set an account to login).
If you wish to join us, could you please email Mark Quarmby, the Director of Music, so that we have some idea of numbers per part for the day: mark@ssms.org.au
Hymnfest will be conducted by our Choral Director, Huw Belling and will be accompanied by the organ and our brass ensemble with timpani.
As usual, we will have a combined choir rehearsal the Sunday before on Sunday 2 September at St Stephen's, Macquarie St commencing at 1.30pm. Choristers need to know their parts before the rehearsal as we won't have time to teach parts on that day.
We will have a warmup on the Hymnfest day and allocate seating positions at 1pm. The performance will start at 2.30pm and there will be an afternoon tea to follow in the hall downstairs.
Dress for the performance will be all black, or black and white.
To download a copy of the choir's hymn booklet, please click on blue link below:
Choir hymn booklet (20 pages, including title page and contents)
All choristers should be familiar with the harmonies for those verses to be sung in harmony and
sopranos, in particular, will need to learn any descants in advance of our rehearsal.
If you don't have a score of the anthems, please click on the links below. Please note that the Rutter anthem is still under copyright and this scan is just for your own reference and personal use. St Stephen's has bought original copies. The Parry is now out of copyright.
Parry 'I was glad' (11 pages)
Rutter 'The Lord Bless You and Keep You' (4 pages)
Some rehearsal recordings can be found below:
Please note that we are not singing the 'Vivat' section used at coronations (pages 8 and 9)
John Fletcher's site - login required
https://johnfletchermusic.org/parrychh-i-was-glad/
Free Youtube rehearsal videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/Choirparts/search?query=parry
Please note we are singing the two part (or SA) edition and several rehearsal sites only have the full SATB version.
All women will sing the top line (marked Soprano in some scores) and all the men will sing the bottom line (marked Alto in some scores).
John Fletcher's site - login required
https://johnfletchermusic.org/lord-bless-keep-rutterj-sa/
We are looking forward to you joining us again this year.
Mark Quarmby
Director of Music