Thomas Coats Memorial Choral Society Annual Concert

2010 marked the 30th anniversary of Thomas Coats Memorial Choral Society, and we go forward into our 31st year with renewed energy following our celebration year and very successful performance of Verdi Requiem. This year, we’ll be going back to the work performed by the Society at its very first concert in 1981: Puccini’s Messa di Gloria with its great operatic tunes and luscious harmony. That will be coupled with Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs for baritone solo, choir and orchestra – settings of poems by George Herbert, with a stunning choral finale. Finally we also celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt and, to mark this anniversary, we will perform Liszt’s setting of Psalm 13.

We are delighted that we will again be joined by excellent soloists; Thomas Walker (a local boy) will be our tenor soloist and Michel de Souza will be our bass. Michel sang for us in the Verdi and Thomas gave a very successful solo recital in October in aid of the church organ fund. We will once again by accompanied by the orchestra of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.