2015 St John's Stamford Coffee Time Concerts
Coffee time concerts in July, August and September 2015
Friday Morning Coffee-time concerts at St John's Church, Stamford
11.00 a.m. for about 50 minutes in August & September
Morning concerts have free admission, with retiring collection in aid of The Churches Conservation Trust. There will light refreshments afterwards: cakes, biscuits, tea & coffee. If it turns hot there will be copious jugs of cordials! The Churchyard Garden will be also be open afterwards for you to sit in as long as you like.
Friday is Market Day; expect the town to be busy. Scotgate Car Park is nearest: PE9 2YB. St John’s Church is off Red Lion Square, opposite ASK Italian Restaurant, and is in the care of The Churches Conservation Trust (Registered Charity No: 258612).
An Organ Recital for Peace
Fr. Bruce Burbidge plays the church’s Hill organ.
After beginning his musical studies in Canada, Bruce Burbidge studied the organ under Jean-Albert Villard (Poitiers Cathedral), Gavin Williams and David Sanger. He held organ scholarships at King's School, Rochester, Christ's College, Cambridge and Westminster Metropolitan Cathedral, and subsequently trained for the priesthood, being ordained for the Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia in 1994. He combines music making with pastoral work and teaching philosophy to students for the priesthood.
1. Mendelssohn Sonata 4 in B flat, first movement
2. John Stanley Voluntary op.5 no.1
3. Two chorales from Bach's Orgelbüchlein:
O Mensch bewein'; Christ lag in Todesbanden
4. Langlais: Chant héroïque; Chant de paix
5. Parry Chorale prelude on 'Eventide'
6. Percy Whitlock Paean from 5 Short Pieces
Geminiani plays for George I
Roger Stimson celebrates the tercentenary of the violin virtuoso, Francesco Geminiani, whose visit to England in 1715 included his famous concert for George I, when Handel played the keyboard. Music by Geminiani and Handel, of course, and other violin and organ music of the period, some of it about soldiering. Fergus Black will pretend to be Handel at the organ.
Friday 14th August at 11am
Battle of Britain Commemoration Concert
Walton's Spitfire Prelude and other aerial pieces played by David Lovell Brown on the famous Hill organ at St John's to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.
Friday 21st August at 11am
Organ Recital by Marc Murray
Marc Murray, organist of The Stump in Boston, marks another conflict - the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 by including Guilmant's Paraphrase on See the Conq'ring Hero Comes in a varied programme that runs from Schubert to Dan Locklair. Are you intrigued?
Friday 28th August at 11am
Malbrouck s'en va‐t‐en guerre
Katharine Parsons and Leon King play Biber Harmonia Artificiosa no. VII for two viola d'amores and continuo, and Carl Stamitz's Marlborough Sonata, which includes variations on the famous French folk song Malbrouck s'en va‐t‐en guerre, (the soldier being John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough).
Full programme notes
Friday 4th September 11am
Song of Survival
St Martin’s Singers perform vocal orchestra works, first sung by women in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in 1943, together with other songs without words.
Malbrouck s'en va‐t‐en guerre
Katharine Parsons and Leon King play Biber Harmonia Artificiosa no. VII for two viola d'amores and continuo, and Carl Stamitz's Marlborough Sonata, which includes variations on the famous French folk song Malbrouck s'en va‐t‐en guerre, (the soldier being John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough).
Full programme notes
Friday 4th September 11am
Song of Survival
St Martin’s Singers perform vocal orchestra works, first sung by women in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in 1943, together with other songs without words.
-
“The singers sat on little stools, too weak from malnutrition and disease to stand a long time. They were barefoot. Bandages covered tropical sores. Norah Chambers raised her hands. Very softly, as through a haze, the first chords of the Largo of the New World Symphony reached us listeners packed together in the compound. Some of us wept. We had not expected such beauty among the cockroaches, the rats, the bedbugs, the lice, and the smell of the latrines. The concert renewed our sense of human dignity. It gave us courage to go on.”
Friday 11th September 11am
Organ recital by Fergus Black
including Beethoven’s Symphony, Wellington’s Victory, a symphony originally written for a kind of mechanical organ.
Friday 18th September 11am
Tinderbox Concert Party
Popular songs and choruses of WW1, led by Ken and Margaret Wainwright and friends. Some audience participation.
Organ recital by Fergus Black
including Beethoven’s Symphony, Wellington’s Victory, a symphony originally written for a kind of mechanical organ.
Friday 18th September 11am
Tinderbox Concert Party
Popular songs and choruses of WW1, led by Ken and Margaret Wainwright and friends. Some audience participation.
Victory for Nelson!
The Opening Concert of the Stamford Georgian Festival given by Burghley Voices Includes Haydn’s Nelson Mass and his Lines from the Battle of the Nile.
Tickets £10.
Tuesday 13th October 7:30pm.
A concert by the Belvoir Wassailers to mark the centenary of The Battle of the Hohenzollern Redoubt on 13th October 1915.
Tickets £8 (£5 concessions).
A concert by the Belvoir Wassailers to mark the centenary of The Battle of the Hohenzollern Redoubt on 13th October 1915.
Tickets £8 (£5 concessions).
-
The war memorial at St John’s lists the names of many of the men from the Lincolnshire Regiments who were the first to go over the top. Within half an hour the regiment had suffered hundreds of casualties. The parish went into mourning when reports of the losses reached Stamford. Over 90% of the Lincolns who fell that day have no known graves.