The Micklegate Singers, A Little Light Shakespeare, Salvation Army Citadel, York, March 27 (From York Press)

The Micklegate Singers, A Little Light Shakespeare, Salvation Army Citadel, York, March 27

10:55am Monday 22nd March 2010 in

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The Micklegate Singers turn the spotlight on English literature in Saturday’s concert, A Little Light Shakespeare, at the Salvation Army Citadel, Gillygate, York.

In the 8pm programme, contemporary Finnish, American and British composers use jazz, madrigal, doo-wop and hillbilly music to present the words of William Shakespeare and Lewis Carroll in a new light.

Selections include Matthew Harris’s Shakespeare Songs, It Was A Lover And His Lass and Sigh No More, Ladies and Jaakko Mäntyjärvi’s Four Shakespeare Songs, composed in 1984 for his Helsinki choir, with its echo of the Renaissance practice of word-painting in music. George Shearing’s Music To Hear sets five Shakespeare sonnets and songs to music in a jazzy, easy-listening fashion.

Säde Rissanen’s musical word-painting of Lewis Carroll’s poem Jabberwocky and Bob Chilcott’s Little Jazz Mass, first performed in New Orleans, completes this “musical riot of a concert”.

The York amateur choir will be accompanied by David Pipe on piano, Christopher Wright on drums and Pietro Lusvardi on double bass. As ever, the conductor will be Nicholas Carter, director of music at Queen Mary’s School, Topcliffe.

Tickets are available at £10, concessions £6, from the York Minster box office, 0844 939 0015, or www.boxoffice.yorkminster.org or on the door.