Amici Moments
The choir has always tried to be innovative and to produce musical events which are out of the ordinary. We appear to have been successful in this regard. In his review of our 2006 concert of Bernstein and Patterson, Brendan Ashe said “Amici don’t do dull . . . .” a sentiment we were delighted to hear expressed.In November 2004 Amici gave the Remembrance Sunday concert in King’s College Chapel, for which we presented Karl Jenkins’s towering composition “The Armed Man”, a Mass for Peace. The orchestral forces are enormous and we had some trepidation about competing with the percussion for a start!
The choir performed the entire 74-minute work from memory, and the music was complemented by an audio-visual display of images and sounds depicting not only the horrors of war but the nobility and sacrifice of ordinary human beings caught in its awful grasp. A limited-edition DVD is available containing the audio performance and the images which were seen, synchronised to the music.
Earlier, in 2002, Amici presented a semi-staged version of Mendellsohn’s ‘Elijah’. This was a co-operative effort with producer Hilary Marshall, who had long envisaged the work as more of an opera than an oratorio. The various dramatic episodes in the piece were effectively choreographed and simply costumed to great effect – we couldn’t quite stretch to a cataclysmic rainstorm or a sacrificial pyre spontaneously igniting, but maybe next time.
The title role was played with stunning effect by Guy Robinson, a young and amazing baritone, with whom the choir has maintained a warm relationship. Most recently Guy sang the baritone solo in our Remembrance Sunday performance of Brahms’s ‘Ein Deutsches Requiem’.
Another linkage we have established is with the composer Douglas Coombes. We performed the European premier of his ‘Requiem’, and the composer attended our performance. He obviously thought we did it reasonably well, and undertook to write something just for Amici. This resulted in a musical setting of a number of Aesop’s Fables, put into verse by Robin Bush.
By a strange coincidence, Douglas has his own (ladies) choir, called The Amici Singers, and we have been pleased to perform jointly with them.
Rumour has it that Douglas is contemplating another composition for us – watch this space.
Amici has established a tradition of touring – our first such venture was in 2003, when we took part in a choral festival in Northern Italy. This was much enjoyed, the music, scenery and conviviality all combining to make the trip a wonderful experience. Memorably we almost caused an international incident after one of our concerts. We were having an admittedly rather loud ‘wind down’ in the lounge of the hotel when the manager (obviously non-musical) came storming in and ripped the plug out of the keyboard. No problem, we do ‘a cappella’ pretty well too!
The following year we went to Ypres close to Remembance time, and were privileged to sing at the famous Menin Gate ceremony. The visits to the battlefield cemeteries were most moving, and gave us a real context for our Remembrance Sunday performance of ‘The Armed Man’, as described earlier.
More recently the choir has visited New England, and in the summer of 2007 we went to Bordeaux to sample the wine and entertained local populace. For 2009 we are maintaining our proud tradition of visiting places with lots of sunshine and wine and will be heading to Valencia in Spain.
