A Season To Sing

7.30 pm on Saturday 17th May 2025 in St. Mary’s Church, Wigton

In 2024, Wigton Choral Society co-commissioned a new work - A Season to Sing by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange - to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the first publication of Vivaldi’s popular set of violin concertos The Four Seasons. Arranged in this version for mixed voices and string quintet, A Season to Sing weaves texts from poetry and the Bible into the familiar melodies from Vivaldi’s work complemented by a new setting by Forbes L’Estrange of Ecclesiastes 3.2 – “To everything there is a season”.

Wigton Choral Society is one of a small number of choirs world-wide who signed up to premiere this work in their area. We were delighted to provide a local opportunity to experience this new and exciting re-imagining of a much-loved work.

A Season to Sing

In addition to the title work, the choir performed a range of songs following the theme of the four seasons, with music from Brahms, Elgar, Grieg and Delius; words from Robert Burns; and the stylistic touches of Eva Cassidy - a truly eclectic mix.

The concert was conducted by our Music Director, Ian Wright, and accompanied by The Throstle Ensemble.

Review

Our thanks go to Anne-Marie Kerr for the following review of our concert.

Wigton Choral Society A Season to Sing
Saturday 17 May 2025, St Mary’s Church, Wigton

From its lively opening number to its gentle closing chord, Wigton Choral Society’s Spring concert was a joyful celebration of singing.

It began with an enchanting sequence of ten season-related pieces by as many different composers/arrangers. The choir’s Music Director Ian Wright had himself skilfully arranged many of them to draw the best from his singers, their excellent accompanist Amanda Wright, and the highly-accomplished string quintet making up the Throstle Ensemble. As ever, the well-balanced choir sounded confident whether performing a cappella or with accompaniment, and its various voice sections came into their own on several occasions: the combined altos, tenors and basses produced a beautifully warm tone in Gjeilo’s Autumn, while a solo group of four sopranos led one section of Grieg’s wistful Last Spring, over the swelling but sensitive accompaniment of strings and choir, a beautiful effect. This first half was almost a full concert in itself!

By contrast, the second half was given over entirely to a single new work: A Season To Sing was co-commissioned by Wigton Choral Society, together with fifty-four other choirs around the world, from British soprano and composer Joanna Forbes L’Estrange to mark the 300th anniversary of the first performance of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. The composer describes her composition as a choral re-imagining of these famous violin concertos, using texts from poetry (some by Vivaldi and Forbes L’Estrange themselves), madrigals and the Bible to allow the choir to enjoy singing Vivaldi’s well-known melodies. The string quintet played superbly and reliably throughout.

I can imagine the fun brought to choral rehearsals by the variety of texts employed, the cuckoo-ing and other vocal effects produced and the ingenious use of body percussion; whispering the text to create a very wintry feel; nasal droning to evoke the bagpipes; finger-clicking, thigh-patting and foot-stamping building up to a full-blown summer storm; and, most enjoyable of all for me, a warm, relaxed tribute to Ward Swingle, featuring a scat dialogue between two sopranos and two altos over a mock-pizzicato-bass line and a cushion of vocal raindrops from the rest of the choir.

The choir’s obvious enjoyment of the music and appreciation of their Director, their accompanist and the strings made for a very happy evening. Warm congratulations and thanks are due to Ian Wright and Wigton Choral Society for their vision in sponsoring A Season to Sing and for presenting its first performance in the north of England within the high-quality and imaginative programming we have come to expect from this choir.

Review by Anne-Marie Kerr

Concert flyer and poster

A pdf copy of our flyer can be downloaded here.