Sat 3 March, 7.30pm The Morley Consort of Voices
20-01-2012 14:20
An early start to the Abbey’s concert season
We are delighted to be able to host a concert by The Morley Consort of Voices directed by Peter Aston on Saturday 3 March
http://themorleyconsortofvoices.weebly.com/
The Morley Consort of Voices is named after Thomas Morley, who was born in Norwich in 1557 and served as Master of the Choristers at Norwich Cathedral before he moved to London, soon becoming a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. Morley was one of the most prolific and versatile composers of his generation, exerting a powerful influence on his contemporaries and so shaping the course of English music during its golden age in the years around the turn of the 17th century. The Morley Consort performs vocal ensemble music from the Renaissance to the present day, though the focus is on music from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
The ensemble’s six singers are all members of the University of East Anglia, as is their musical director Emeritus Professor Peter Aston, who was head of music at UEA from 1974 to 1998 and is acclaimed internationally as a composer and conductor.
The consort gave their debut performance at the Assembly House on Friday 23 April 2010, as part of the UEA Music at One series of lunchtime concerts. The programme included madrigals by Morley, Gibbons and Wilbye, a group of 16th-century chansons, sacred pieces by William Byrd and Claudio Monteverdi, and partsongs by Mendelssohn and Peter Aston.
Peter Aston English composer, Peter Aston, was born in Birmingham in 1938 and studied at Birmingham School of Music and University of York. His career has subsequently combined teaching and lecturing whilst working as a composer, conductor and musicologist. He has held senior academic posts at the University of York and University of East Anglia, where he taught for twenty five years and is now Professor Emeritus.
His compositions include songs, chamber works for voices and instruments, choral and orchestral works and a children’s opera. However he is best known as a composer of church music and was a founder of the Norwich Festival of Contemporary Church Music and is a Lay Canon of Norwich Cathedral.
As a conductor he has worked with leading British orchestras and various international choirs. Positions held include conductor of the Aldeburgh Festival Singers and Principal Conductor of the Sacramento Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra in the US. He also founded the Tudor Consort and English Baroque Ensemble. Peter Aston also works as an editor of Baroque music and has written extensively on music of that period.
Further details Barbara Randall 01953 601939 office@wymfestival.org.uk
Tickets available soon £10 (Full time students £5)