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DCC serves Nautical Feast for Mayflower 400 celebrations

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Dartington Community Choir serves up a Nautical Feast to mark the 2020 ‘Mayflower 400’ Celebrations

Dartington Community Choir (DCC) proudly presents the celebrated baritone Roderick Williams in Vaughan Williams’ dramatic ‘A Sea Symphony’ and Stanford’s ‘Songs of the Fleet’ with the choir, soprano Catherine Hamilton and the Dartington Sinfonietta.

Dramatic

Simon Capet, DCC’s conductor and director of music, has chosen the choir’s dramatic concert programme to resonate with the Mayflower 400 commemorations. Forceful and emotional, ‘A Sea Symphony’ of 1909 is set to verses by Walt Whitman and evokes courageous sailors exploring vast oceans, through all their immense dangers and beauties, as a metaphor for the individual soul’s journey through life – much like the Pilgrim Fathers’. With bold, energetic and vivid orchestration, Vaughan Williams sought to capture the essence of the new 20th century before World War 1: its optimism, its new science and its sense of adventure.

Celebration of the sea

The programme will also include Charles Stanford’s ‘Songs of the Fleet’ of 1910; like ‘A Sea Symphony’, these five songs set to the poems of Sir Henry Newbolt are a celebration of the sea and the profound demands it makes on those who confront it with their hopes.

Two performances

Because of the large numbers of performers needed, and the relatively small size then available for the audience, DCC have decided to put on two performances back-to-back, on Sunday April 26 and Monday April 27 respectively. Each performance has a total running-time of 150 minutes, and the content should be suitable for children of 10+ – ‘A Sea Symphony’ was, in fact, one of my A level set works back at DHSB, many years ago now, and I loved it the first time I heard it. 

Tickets – £25 / £10 Full-time students and under 16s are available online from the Dartington Box Office, or by phone between 1-7pm daily on 01803 847070, or contact by email at boxoffice@dartington.org

Sunday April 26 & Monday April 27 in the Great Hall, Dartington, both performances starting at 7.30pm

Philip R Buttall

Philip Buttall
Philip Buttall
Philip R Buttall was the Classical Music Writer at Plymouth Herald from 1997-2017. He is a sought-after piano teacher, composer and arranger, and online concert and CD reviewer. Further information and contact details are available at www.philiprbuttall.co.uk
Philip Buttall
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