Join the Ryedale Festival Chorus (From York Press)

Join the Ryedale Festival Chorus

3:15pm Friday 18th May 2012 in Music news and reviews

THE Ryedale Festival is finding its voice in the form of the newly created Ryedale Festival Chorus.

This venture is the culmination of years of planning and gathers together small and large choral groups from across the area to form a super-choir.

Already, 200 choir members have begun rehearsals for Ryedale Festival Chorus’s inaugural performance of Verdi’s Requiem at the York Barbican on Saturday, October 6, and it is anticipated that the final chorus will number more than 300 singers from all over Yorkshire.

Conductor Simon Wright, musical director of the York Guildhall Orchestra, is leading the preparations for this event. As well as conducting many of the country’s finest orchestras and at the Classical Brit Awards, Simon has worked with Plácido Domingo, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Renée Fleming, Bryn Terfel, Andrea Bocelli and Sir James Galway.

Rehearsals will be spread throughout the area, involving smaller groups working on the programme before coming together to rehearse on a larger scale and at the final, full-scale rehearsals immediately before the autumn concert.

It is not too late for anyone interested in being part of the chorus to contact Sue Elm by emailing rftoffice@aol.com

Come October, they will be sharing the Barbican stage with a stellar line-up of soloists: soprano Katherine Broderick, mezzo soprano Louise Winter, tenor Barry Banks and bass Matthew Best.