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St Matthew Passion at St John’s Smith Square

Joe Fort, KCL Chapel Choir, Hanover Band and St Paul’s Knightsbridge soloists (image: Twitter)

Last night Clare joined The Choir of King’s College London and the Hanover Band in performing Bach’s monumental St Matthew Passion at St. John’s Smith Square. Director Joe Fort is also the director of music at St Paul’s Knightsbridge, in whose choir Clare holds a regular post. As designated soloist for Choir 1, Clare performed Können Tränen meiner Wangen.

Haydn Nelson Mass, Bishopwearmouth Choral Society, Sunderland

Beethoven & Haydn at the Hexham Abbey Festival, Northumberland

Repeating a programme that had come to the North East last Autumn (pictured), Clare McCaldin returned to Northumberland to sing with the Bishopwearmouth Choral Society in a performance of Haydn’s Nelson Mass alongside three colleagues and on a bill that featured a favourite performer from the area, Bradley Creswick, playing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.

In Sunderland Minster on this occasion, Haydn’s fulsome Te Deum was also on the programme and clearly enjoyed by performers and audience alike under the direction of conductor David Murray.

Mahler 4 with the Bridgewater Sinfonia

Clare McCaldin takes a curtain call with Steve Joyce Myall and the Bridgewater Sinfonia

It’s been an unrelentingly cold start to the year and the chill drove through into the start of March. It was going to take a special sort of concert to warm through St Peter’s Church, Berkhamstead… but, of course, that’s exactly what the Bridgewater Sinfonia managed to rustle up, under the clubbable direction of conductor Steve Joyce Myall.

The first half was a strong account of Brahms’ Violin Concerto, forging ahead under the bow of Nathaniel Anderson-Frank. Clare was involved in the ambitious second half performance of Mahler’s 4th Symphony, which scores its final movement with a high solo voice. The song Das himmlische Leben (The Heavenly Life) from Des Knaben Wunderhorn is an unburdened reflection on life on earth, which brings a particular glow to the previous, bucolic movements that the considerable and committed audience clearly appreciated.

Revolution!

I’m off to the Stroud Festival later this month for a concert with two of my long-time friends and collaborators, Paul Sheehan and Paul Turner. This year’s Festival is themed on Revolution in the Arts so we have created a new programme exploring this idea in three dimensions – aesthetic, harmonic and socio-political. Inevitably there’s a lot of overlap but we will be offering everything from Beethoven to Cathy Berberian, via Ravel, Wagner and Weill. It’s a terrific range of repertoire, full of interesting juxtapositions, and we think that even the most knowledgeable members of our audience will make discoveries.

As the concert is taking place on the day when the UK may or may not be leaving the European Union, Revolution seems a very appropriate theme and we are assuming that anything could happen!

Tickets available via the Stroud Festival website: https://stroudfestival.org/