A choir which has performed in Tavistock every summer for the past 50 years are once again bringing high quality classical and choral music to the town for their annual festival.
The Exon Singers are returning with an exciting programme of choral and classical music directed by Joseph Judge.
The festival runs from Wednesday to Sunday, July 24-28, with all bar one of the concerts taking place in St Eustachius’ Church.
The Exon Singers, founded in 1966, are one of the UK’s leading chamber choirs, renowned for dynamic and expressive performances of music from the Renaissance to the present day.
The choir is a Devon one, nurturing talent. It dates right back to the autumn of 1965 when a handful of students in Exeter met on Friday evenings to sing for fun at Exeter Cathedral.
They enjoyed their informal Advent performance enough to plan their first formal concert as The Exon Singers in 1966, taking their name from the Latin signature of the Bishop of Exeter.
From these beginnings, a summer festival was founded to bring former students together to make music together each summer. In 1970 this moved from Exeter to Ilfracombe, and in 1973 to Tavistock, where Exon’s tenor John Pedlar was then the curate.
John has long since moved onto pastures new, but the festival has remained in Tavistock ever since, with the unstinting support of the local community.
The festival sees members of the choir come together from all over the country, meeting up with old friends and new singers to make music to the highest standard.
The festival opens at St Eustachius’ on the Wednesday, July 24 at 7.30pm with two classical greats: Vivaldi’s Gloria and Mozart’s Coronation Mass, accompanied by festival organist Neil Taylor and the Devon-based Haldon Quartet.
On the Thursday, the Haldon Quartet will give a lunchtime recital (starting at 1.10pm) of work by Schubert and American composer Caroline Shaw as well as Devon folk music.
This is followed at 7.30pm by All My Past and Futures – expressive unaccompanied choral music by John Tavener, Sarah Rimkus, Ethel Smyth and Eric Whitacre. The evening ends at 9pm with Compline by Candlelight.
On Friday, July 26 at 1.10 pm Exon Singers will perform their only concert not at St Eustachius’ Church, in the Great Barn at the National Trust’s Buckland Abbey, with From Renaissance to Radiohead. Meanwhile, in St Eustachius’ there will also be an organ recital by Neil Taylor (with free admission) at the same time of 1.10pm.
Then on the Friday evening, from 6.30-8.30pm visitors can join in with a choral workshop preparing John Rutter’s Gloria to be sung in a final concert in the parish church on the Saturday evening. Starting at 7.30pm, this sees the Bristol Brass Consort join Exon in a programme which also includes Boulanger’s Hymn to the Sun.
The festival ends with a Choral Eucharist in the church on Sunday morning at 9.45am. See www.exonsingers.org.uk for more details and tickets