The Queen's College Record 2023

Reports and College Activities
A YEAR IN THE CHAPEL CHOIR
Officers: Organist Prof. Owen Rees; Organ Scholars Isaac
Adni, Luke Mitchell; Maurice Pearton Choral Scholar and
recipient of the Hilde Pearton Vocal Training Alaw Evans;
Hildburg Williams Lieder Scholar Lizi Vineall; Librarians
Rosanna Milner, Oisin Byrne; Choir Manager Melissa
Talbot, Jake Sternberg
Professor O L Rees
Organist
During the winter of 1950, Kenneth Leighton – then in
his final year at Queen’s reading Classics – composed
the cantata Veris gratia, dedicating it to the then College
Organist, Bernard Rose and the Eglesfield Musical Society,
who gave the first performance on 8 June 1951. For our ‘Music for a Summer’s
Evening’ concert in June 2023 the Choir resurrected this unknown but exquisite
work, and we went on to record the piece for CD in September, performing it with the
Britten Sinfonia, an ensemble specialising in modern British repertoire. For the CD
(to be released next Autumn) we paired Leighton’s cantata with another work which
received its first performance in the Eglesfield Musical Society’s Trinity Term concert
(one year later, in 1952): Vaughan Williams’s An Oxford Elegy, a late masterpiece to
complement Leighton’s early work. The recording sessions were a fitting finale to
what had been a particularly strong year in terms of the Choir’s musical standards.
A few weeks before the CD recording sessions, the Choir was on tour in southern
Germany. We spent six days in Munich (our spirits undampened by continuously wet
weather), giving concerts to capacity audiences in two of the city’s most impressive
churches, the Theatinerkirche and the Ludwigskirche, as well as two other recitals in
the area, before travelling East, to Neustadt an der Weinstrasse (presenting a prequel
concert to their early music festival), and then to Trier, singing in the breathtaking
gothic splendours of the Liebrauenkirche. The intensive work together on such a
tour bears fruit in terms of the ensemble’s disciplined and compelling projection of
the music, and we were delighted to receive standing ovations at the end of the
concerts, and likewise a warm reception after singing Mass at the Jesuitenkirche in
Heidelberg to end the tour. The whole project was expertly organised by the Choir
Manager, Jake Sternberg, with invaluable assistance from members of the Choir –
Lizi Vineall and Bastian Bohrmann – with local knowledge.
In Chapel throughout the academic year the work of the Choir benefitted from the
warm support of our new Chaplain, Alice Watson. Half way through Michaelmas
Term the BBC returned to Queen’s to broadcast Choral Evensong on Radio 3,
with music marking the anniversary of the death of Robert Parsons and the birth of
Thomas Tomkins, both of which occurred in 1572. Michaelmas Term also saw the
first annual Queen’s Choir Association lunch and Evensong, an enjoyable opportunity
46 The Queen’s College | College Record 2023