There are classical music clubs in many towns, but – as far as we know – none quite like ours!
Music clubs and societies usually engage visiting professional musicians to perform for them, but we are different: we draw on our own membership for our concerts. Southend is an amazingly musical place, with two permanent symphony orchestras and at least ten choral and operatic societies. Over the years it has produced a steady stream of young musicians, many of whom have become famous performers - so we have a wonderful pool of talent to benefit from.
Because we want to encourage all ages and levels of ability, one of our concerts may include a quartet or quintet performed by professional or near-professional players, ensemble items by enthusiastic amateurs, and even a talented youngster trying out a piece for a forthcoming exam or college audition.
But performing at our concerts is not compulsory! The majority of our members attend our concerts simply to enjoy listening to a wide range of chamber music, and many use the contact opportunity to get together with other members to enjoy playing in small ensembles.
Our membership fee is £12 per year, with a whole-family rate of £20 and a
student rate of £2.
This includes entrance to all the concerts.
Visitors are very welcome at all our concerts, for which the entry fee is £4 for
adults or 50p for students and children.
Forthcoming concerts:
Saturday 10 March 2012**
Saturday 28 April 2012
Saturday 23 June 2012
Saturday 15 September 2012
Saturday 10 November 2012
They all begin at 7.30pm and finish around 9.30pm
(There is an interval at which freshly made tea, coffee, cold drinks and biscuits
are available)
All concerts are held at:
Highlands Methodist Church
Sutherland Boulevard
Leigh-on-Sea
Essex
SS9 3PT
** The club meeting on Saturday 10th March 2012 will include a performance of the oratorio Zimri by John Stanley (1712-1786).
After Handel's death in 1760, John Stanley began a partnership with the composer John Christopher Smith (1712-1795) in order to continue with performances of oratorios at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. For the opening season Stanley composed Zimri which was first performed at Covent Garden on Wednesday 12th March 1760.
After some quite extensive research (including searching electronically most leading national and local newspapers between 1750 and 2008 for any reference to this oratorio) we believe that there is a very good chance that this will be the first public performance of this work since its second outing at Covent Garden on Friday 20th February 1761.
The only surviving musical score of Zimri, contains the libretto in full and the music to all the arias (which make up the vast majority of the oratorio) but unfortunately lacks the full score of the choruses and the recitatives. We are therefore planning to reconstruct the choruses using other musical sources by John Stanley and to have the recitatives spoken rather than sung.
Appropriately the performance will take place in 2012 - being the 300th anniversary of Stanley’s birth.
Works recently performed at the club include:
Mozart - Piano Quartet in G Minor
Walton - Suite from Facade, arranged for piano duet
Rheinberger - Suite for Violin, Cello and Organ
Faure - Dolly Suite for piano duet
Bach - Flute Sonata in E Minor
Elgar - Sea Pictures (songs for contralto and piano)
