The Gippeswyk Singers from Ipswich will be performing next week in Christ Church as the town gets ready for the start of the Frome Festival.
As an overture to the festival they will perform a programme of both a capella and accompanied music, including the world premiere of choir member Bob Latchem’s ethereally beautiful An Abundance of Blessings, for choir, baritone and harp. Other highlights include three choruses from J.S. Bach’s St John Passion and Bob Chilcott’s Little Jazz Mass.
This Ipswich chamber choir, founded by musical director Geoff Lavery, over 40 years ago, has recently toured in Holland and also Yorkshire, where they sang in Fountains Abbey. Their sell-out concert last year at the prestigious Snape Maltings was a huge success, achieving high standards of musical excellence, when they performed Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius with the Beccles Choral Society and the Lambeth Orchestra. They have been invited to return to Snape Maltings in 2019 with Verdi’s Requiem.
Conductor Geoff Lavery has strong connections with our local area, growing up in Trowbridge and attending Trowbridge High School for Boys (now John of Gaunt) where his father Frank Lavery was head of music and also secretary of Trowbridge and West Wiltshire Music Festival, receiving the Trowbridge Civic Award. Geoff himself was a clarinetist in Trowbridge Orchestra and Bath Youth Orchestra, later Bath Philharmonia. From the age of 13 he played the organ at North Bradley Church, before attending Liverpool University.
The choir’s Frome concert will be on Saturday 30th June, at 7.30pm in Christ Church, Christchurch Street West, when they will perform in aid of Frome Food Bank and Christ Church. Tickets at £10 available in advance from the box office, tel. 01373 455420, online at cheeseandgrain.com, or on the door on the night.