Details

St Andrew's Church
Maple Road
Surbiton
London
KT6 4DS
England

Tickets

Prices: £15
Booking line: 020 8398 0651
Book Tickets

Programme

Charles Villiers StanfordMy Love's an Arbutus
Leonard BernsteinCandide: 'Make our garden grow'
Cecilia McDowallThe Ice is Listening
Gustav HolstTurn back, O man, Op.36a no.2
Edward ElgarGive unto the Lord, Op.74
John DowlandWeep you no more, sad fountains
Charles Hubert Hastings ParryFair Daffodils

Performers

Andrew Griffiths – Conductor
Gavin Roberts – organ / piano
Donna Lennard – soprano

Kingston Choral Society

Programme Note

KCS presents a summer programme focusing on the natural world featuring music by Leonard Bernstein, Elgar, Holst, Howells, Parry, Purcell, Stanford and Dowland in his 400th anniversary year. These diverse pieces share a focus on the natural world.  Part one of the concert delights in all things pastoral in a series of anthems, partsongs and folk songs.

Part two introduces the ominous note of threats to nature, with Cecilia McDowall’s haunting cantata, The Ice is Listening.  Inspired by accounts of seventeenth and eighteenth century frost fairs on the River Thames, this gorgeous work evokes nature’s fragile balance – a theme amplified by Raymond Yiu’s rich song cycle for soprano, The Earth and Every Common Sight, which urgently addresses the peril of climate change.

The evening ends with the finale from Bernstein’s operetta, Candide. After the ravages of war, maleficence and natural disasters, the lovers find peace in cultivating their small patch of land – nature as healer.

KCS Summer Concert 2026 Poster

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