Jane Glover describes it as a “brilliant, mighty piece.”
Powerful recommendation indeed from a former principal conductor of Huddersfield Choral Society who is reunited with the internationally renowned choir here in its home town next week.
The Choral gets its Huddersfield Town Hall season off to an exciting start indeed with a performance of Handel’s Israel In Egypt.
This is another huge oratorio by the composer with which the choir is so closely associated, Handel.
It reunites the singers not just with conductor Jane Glover but also with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, an orchestra with which it has performed many times.
The forces needed for this remarkable work include six soloists. One of them is bass singer Mark Wildman, a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, whose passion for singing began in Huddersfield.
The concert is on Friday November 1 and the other soloists are Jennifer France (soprano), Alice Rose Privett (soprano), Kate Symonds-Joy (alto), Stuart Jackson (tenor) and Gareth John (bass).
Mark Wildman was born here in Huddersfield where his earliest singing experiences were in St John's Church at Birkby.
His early formal musical education was at The King's School, Gloucester and as a chorister in Gloucester Cathedral.
Mark went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music and it was while he was a student at the Academy that he won the JW Pearce Prize (Kirklees Young Musician of the Year ) at the Mrs Sunderland Music Festival on the same stage where he will be singing once again next week.
He then won a Choral Exhibition at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
This season is Mark's fortieth on the concert platform as a recitalist and soloist in Oratorio. He has travelled throughout Europe, Scandanavia, the British Isles and the USA, where his repertoire included most of the bass roles in the standard repertoire as well as first performances of many new works.
Mark has sung with many of Britain's foremost orchestras and several of the leading choral conductors of the day.
He has combined a busy performing career with that of a professor of singing at the RAM where he was appointed to the Vocal Faculty in 1982 and subsequently as Head of Vocal Studies in 1991.
Mark is a much travelled adjudicator and has served as a jury member at a number of international singing competitions and he is a visiting Professor at the Reykjavik Songskolinn, Iceland, and at the Cardiff International Academy of Voice.
Israel in Egypt , the piece he will be singing in next week, is one of Handel’s great oratorios. It pre-dates Messiah by two years.
The text is drawn mainly from the Book of Exodus and the Psalms. The first part tells how Moses brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt – including realistic depictions of the various plagues which afflicted the Egyptians, including frogs, flies, lice and locusts.
The second part is Moses’ Song, recounting how Pharaoh’s horsemen were drowned in the Red Sea after the Israelites had been led safely through the parted waters.
Although there are six soloists, it is the choruses which dominate this work, containing what many describe as some of Handel’s most sublime and inspirational music. Many are ‘double choruses’, with the choir divided into two equal halves, and this is how the Choral’s performance will be given.
Jane Glover is very much looking forward to working with the choir and with the Royal Northern Sinfonia again on this piece which has been in the Choral’s repertoire since 1837.
The choir has sung the piece 25 times, most recently in 1988.
The concert starts at 7.30pm.
