[27
APR 00] COVENTRY CATHEDRAL NEWS
Church Music Festival To Be Televised
Organisers
of this year’s International Church Music Festival in Coventry have
secured coverage of the main concert on the BBC.
The
flagship religious music programme, Songs of Praise, is to come to the
city in June to film the Evening Gala Concert in Coventry Cathedral.
The
concert starts at 7.30pm on 24 June and will be conducted by Sir David
Willcocks, a former Director
of the Royal College of Music who conducted massed choirs and
trumpeters for the VE and VJ commemorations in London.
Also
featured will be the Massed Festival choir, made up of choirs from
around the world visiting Coventry for the four-day festival, and the
English symphony Orchestra piano duo Stephen Nielsen and Ovid Young.
The
BBC will be covering traditional hymns and selected music from the
90-minute concert, which includes works by Mozart and Handel and music
such as the Coventry Litany written by local conductor Paul Leddington
Wright for the festival’s 10th anniversary in 1994.
It
is the first time that Songs of Praise has chosen to record the
International Church Music Festival, which returns to Coventry for the
9th time this year.
The
festival, which visits the city biannually, features more than 800
choral singers from across the world, over half are from the US, but
choirs come from as far afield as India, Poland, Ghana and Bulgaria.
Festival
co-ordinator Claire Monks said:
“The
BBC has chosen to film the festival because it forms such an
important part of the calendar year for church music.
“The
gala concert is also very unusual in that it includes a massed choir
of around 600 singers from around the world.”
The
34-minute programme will be screened on 16 July 16.
Tickets
for the Gala Concert and the rest of the festival will go on sale in
early May from the Cathedral Bookshop on 024 7625 1509, and Warwick
and Leamington Festival Box Office on 01926 496277.
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