Reviews
St Michael’s Highgate: Sing Christmas, 10 December 11
The Ham & High newspaper featured Crouch End Festival Chorus’s Sing Christmas concerts in a news report, praising the choir for its fundraising collaboration with Ambitious About Autism.
St James Muswell Hill: summer concert, 2 July 11
” There were two main pieces; the well-known (Allegri’s Miserere) and the more obscure (Kodaly’s Missa Brevis). The former was breath-taking: The Chorus divided into sections – the main part remaining in front of the altar, two small monk-like groups intoning the psalm at the rear of the church and a third in the Side Chapel producing ethereal, disembodied sound. The effect was overwhelmingly beautiful.
” … CEFC were at their best in this programme; although they are in their comfort zone with sacred music but they never became complacent. Everyone seemed to relish the challenge of adapting to differing styles – early European polyphony, Russian Orthodox, then the freshness of the work of a young contemporary composer. A wonderful concert.”
David Winskill in the Ham & High
Royal Festival Hall: Ray Davies’s Meltdown, 19 June 11
Crouch End Festival Chorus joined Ray Davies, his band and the London Philharmonic Orchestra in a sell-out concert featuring the first full live performance of the Village Green Preservation Society album and all the Kinks’ greatest hits.
“To combine a rock band, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and a 92-voice choir – the exceptional Crouch End Festival Chorus – and produce something greater than the sum of the parts was a remarkable achievement.”
Mark Braund in Zimbio
See reviews from the Guardian and the London Evening Standard, plus concert videos and vox pops, in our special Ray Davies and CEFC at Meltdown page.
Barbican: Britten Ballad of Heroes, 29 April 11
Crouch End Festival Chorus performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ilan Volkov in a concert broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.
“[Ballad of Heroes] is a virile, energetic and refreshingly direct piece, sung on this occasion with bracing commitment, vigour and skill by the Crouch End Festival Chorus”
Guy Dammann in The Guardian (with a 5-star rating for the concert)
“The 26-year-old ferociously precocious Britten composed Ballad of Heroes in short score in a mere four days to poems by W. H. Auden and the communist writer Randall Swingler to honour the men of the International Brigade who had been killed fighting the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. It’s a big, public statement, very much the work of a young composer, and wears its heart on its sleeve. The Crouch End Festival Chorus had no reservations about its shocked emotionalism, with Toby Spence the forthright tenor in the recitative passage ‘Still though the scene of possible summer recedes’.”
Peter Reed in The Classical Source
“The chorus performed with superb clarity and an awe-inspiring dynamic range.”
Helen Fraser in Bachtrack
“Britten’s 1939 tribute to the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War [was] boldly delivered, with offstage trumpets, an eloquent tenor in Toby Spence, and the lusty Crouch End Festival Chorus. It was good to hear this rarity live”
Geoff Brown in The Times
Barbican: Bach St John Passion, 16 April 11
“[At the beginning] the Chorus, under David Temple’s sensitive but controlling lead, set exactly the right mood of sorrow, rage, desolation and foreboding of what is to come. Refreshed after the interval, the entire chorus played the terrifying role of the mob, screaming “if he were not a malefactor we would not have delivered him up unto thee.
“… With stunning performances by all the soloists and the London Orchestra da Camera, the Crouch Enders delivered a marvellous, intimate evening for the large and appreciative audience. It was achieved not simply in their technical mastery of the work, but also in the deep understanding of where Bach was leading them and us. Unforgettable.”
David Winskill in the Ham and High
Barbican: Adams Harmonium and Gerhard The Plague, 15 January 11
Actor Paul McGann and the London Orchestra da Camera joined David Temple and Crouch End Festival Chorus for performances of two powerful 20th-century works. Critics praised the choir’s “harmonic brilliance” and “astonishing vocal techniques” – one adding that the evening “put professional outfits to shame”.
Reviews, reactions and photos of the Adams/Gerhard concert
More reviews
Reviews from 2010
Reviews from 2009
Reviews from 2007 and 2008