Yorkshire Bach Choir 2017-18: Masterpieces and miniatures

We are thrilled to announce full details of our 2017-18 concert season! Join us for a year of music packed with beautiful music.

Along with performing some real highlights of the choral repertoire we explore some new concert themes and programmes of music. Here are details of each of our six concerts coming up in 2017/18.

In the Midst of Life: 28.10.17

Our opening concert showcases some real peaks of not just in music but of art in the entire Renaissance period. The extraordinary 40-part motet Spem in alium is the first of four Renaissance choral masterpieces that all engage with and often soar above the troubles of their times. Sheppard’s haunting In Media Vita (‘In the midst of life we are in death’) is a haunting exploration of various texts, including the Nunc Dimittis. The dark splendour of Allegri’s renowned Miserere and Byrd’s mournful Ne irascaris, Domine will also feature alongside music by Tallis, Jeffreys and Ludwig Senfl.

For tickets click here >> bit.ly/YBOctober 

Handel, Vivaldi, Haydn: 9.12.17

This colourful programme features some of the 18th century’s most popular and invigorating music for chorus and instruments. Handel’s vivid setting of Dixit Dominus, composed during his stay in Italy, is one of his most virtuosic and impressive choral compositions. Vivaldi’s colourful Gloria pulsates with festive Venetian energy and is his best known, most popular, choral work. Haydn’s Nelson Mass is possibly his most electrifying and atmospheric mass settings, taking us on a musical journey where dark anxiety is dissolved in joyful triumph.

Tickets are selling quickly for what promises to be a choral highlight of the York Early Christmas Music Festival.

For tickets click here >> bit.ly/YBCXmas

Stories in Glass: Music for the Great East Window 4.02.18

2018 will see the completion of the restoration of York Minster’s iconic Great East Window. Marking this landmark in the life of the city we present music inspired by stained glass and the wider history of York. Events depicted in the window, such as the Death of Absalom with settings of When David heard by Tomkins and Weelkes, and scenes from Revelation, are included. The concert ends with an unabashed celebration of the celestial with Harris’s wonderful Faire is the Heaven and the life-affirming properties of light in Wood’s ecstatic Hail, gladdening light.

For tickets click here >> bit.ly/YBCGlass

Bach: St John Passion: 17.03.18

The Passio Secundum Johannem may be Bach’s most inherently dramatic passion setting. Telling the story of Christ’s sacrifice, it also offers a celebration of human feeling in evoking the joy and suffering of man’s pilgrimage on earth. The vivid, colourful playing of the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists will be joined by Joshua Ellicott and Peter Harvey two outstanding solo interpreters of the roles of Evangelist and Christus.

Book early for what promises to be a highlight of musical life in York in 2018!  

For tickets click here >> bit.ly/JohnPassion

Three Marys: 19.05.18

Mary, mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and the other biblical Marys were the focus of an extraordinary flowering of art during the Renaissance period. Composers were part of this movement, exploring the lives of the Marys in music that ranges from the deeply sacred to the sensual. This concert explores events from the anointing at Bethany to a grieving Mary at the foot of the cross. We will perform music including Palestrina Missa Assumpta est Maria, Guerrero Maria Magdalena, Sheppard Gaude gaude guade Maria and Stabat Mater settings by Palestrina, Padilla and Browne.

For tickets click here >> bit.ly/3Marys

Bach Motets & Rachel Podger: 23.06.18

JS Bach’s motets represent some of his most beautiful and mesmerising musical compositions. Each motet is crafted with complete originality and skill using a dizzying range of choral techniques, from double-choir sonorities to canon, fugue and counterpoint, to explore their deeply felt and varied texts. Complementing this choral feast Yorkshire Bach Choir is pleased to welcome Rachel Podger, a musician who has been described as ‘the queen of the baroque violin’, performing some of Bach’s most wonderful music for violin and harpsichord.

For tickets click here >> bit.ly/BachMotets

Tickets and further details

Full details of ticket prices and season subscriptions can be found on our website. You can save money across the season by subscribing for one of our season tickets. £5 student tickets are available.  

Further details on Yorkshire Bach Choir: bit.ly/YBChoir
Yorkshire Baroque Soloists: bit.ly/YBSoloists

All our concerts (except for the December concert at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall) are performed in the spacious St Michael le Belfrey a historic church in the heart of the city.

 YBC Concert reminder service: http://bit.ly/1nbRxIJ

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