Preview

Southern Cathedrals Festival

July 19-21

JUST under a month before the festival, the Late Night Bach by Candlelight programme got an unexpected preview not long ago when the organ failed and Salisbury Cathedral’s Director of Music, David Halls, played the congregation out to Bach on the piano, earning himself a round of applause.

The three after-hours concerts by candlelight return after they proved popular in 2015.

On the big stage, there are two major concerts taking place in the cathedral, including one on July 19 with period instruments playing Handel and Purcell. The choir and orchestra will be led by historical performance practice specialist Margaret Faultless and features David Blackadder, the trumpeter who performed at Harry and Meghan’s wedding.

David Halls, Director of Music at Salisbury Cathedral said:

“It is always exciting to explore this sort of music ‘in the original' and trying realise the piece as composer might have heard it and written it. We are extremely lucky to have two period performers of the calibre of Margaret Faultless and David Blackadder taking part.”

The closing concert on July 21 will feature the full choirs from all three participating cathedrals – men, girls and boys – with Brahms’ sublime Ein Deutsches Requiem accompanied by the orchestra, La Folia as the centrepiece. The choir and orchestra will also perform Elgar’s Lux aeterna and Kelly’s Elegy In memoriam Rupert Brooke.

A total of five services will be sung during the Southern Cathedrals Festival, including a recording of Evensong for BBC Radio 3 to be transmitted later in the summer.

David Halls, Director of Music at Salisbury Cathedral, and artistic director of the Festival said: "The Festival marks the friendship between the three cathedrals of Chichester, Winchester and Salisbury that goes back many years. Out of it has grown a family of musicians, patrons, worshippers and audience members for whom this Festival offers not only an opportunity to support the home team but to hear some wonderful music.”

For the full programme and details see www.southerncathedralsfestival.org.uk or www.salisburycathedral.org.uk.