Royal Leamington Spa Bach Choir

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Awake Psaltery and Harp!

Sunday 2nd August 2026

Our 2025-6 season reached a joyful and very upbeat conclusion with our final concert on Saturday July 18th in All Saints’ church, Leamington Spa.

On the face of it, the two choral works we performed couldn’t have been more different. The concert began with Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, a jazzy, engaging but also in places very lyrical setting of Hebrew texts taken from several of the Psalms. The piece includes moments of dramatic contrast and vivid sound-painting, as when a tranquil account of Psalm 23 for treble and harp is suddenly interrupted by a fierce outburst from the men singing “Why do the nations rage?”. By contrast, the Requiem by Maurice Duruflé is a meditative, at times almost ethereal work, making extensive use of plainsong melodies and combining them with sensuous French harmonies, both in the vocal lines and also in the stunningly beautiful organ part, played by Colin Druce.

Yet as Jim Bate, our Musical Director, pointed out during rehearsals, both works end with a whispered ‘Amen’ which dies away to nothing - during which our very appreciative audience on Saturday seemed to hold their breath! The two composers were also rather different characters: Bernstein a highly prolific and hugely popular composer and conductor, never out of the public eye, while Duruflé was a reclusive perfectionist who published only a handful of works during his lifetime. Yet here too there is common ground, in the way each composer focussed on the traditions that meant most to them. Bernstein acknowledged his Jewish heritage in his choice of Hebrew Psalms, while also exploiting the jazz and popular idioms which had made him famous. Duruflé as a musical conservative looked to the mediaeval past of the Gregorian chants for his musical inspiration.

Further contrast was provided in the first half of the concert with a stunning performance of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Fantasia for Harp, given by Erica Sinclair. This technically demanding work, firmly rooted in the French Romantic tradition, was twice used as an examination piece by the Paris Conservatoire. It is nevertheless very accessible and enjoyable to listen to, and audience and choir alike gave Erica’s playing rapt attention. Erica also played in the Chichester Psalms, alongside Alex Henshaw providing the essential percussion, and Colin Druce on organ, rising above the challenges of the rather temperamental instrument in All Saints. George Webster from the Collegiate Church of St Mary in Warwick starred as our treble soloist in the Chichester Psalms, while Hannah Mary Taylor (soprano) sang the moving ‘Pie Jesu’ in the Requiem, and Ryan Evans (baritone) gave a powerful account of the solos in ‘Domine Jesu’ and ‘Libera Me’.

This concert was also very special in that it marked the return visit of our friends from the German-American Community Choir of Frankfurt. After 25 members of the RLSBC had travelled to Frankfurt at the end of June to sing the same repertoire in a concert there, 40 members of the German choir were able to join us in Leamington on Saturday. Our expanded numbers created a truly impressive sound in the acoustic of All Saints. We were particularly delighted to welcome Evelyn Ruf, the GACC’s Musical Director, to conduct part of the concert in Leamington. It was a real pleasure to get to know her and members of the choir through this exchange, a timely reminder that music knows no boundaries and is a guaranteed way of making new friends! Huge thanks to all the organisers at both ends of the exchange for all their hard work in making it happen, and to everyone who took part in the exchange and/or hosted our German visitors.

If you too would like the opportunity to make new friends through music, do consider joining the choir for the forthcoming season. We have some very exciting concerts planned (please click here for the full programme of events) and the first two Wednesday evenings in September are open rehearsals, which any potential new recruits are most welcome to attend without obligation (please click here for more details).

Photo: Erica and the choir in rehearsal before the concert

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RLSBC's hottest day ever, Frankfurt 2026

Friday 3rd July 2026

On the last weekend in June, a group of singers from the choir, together with our Musical Director Jim Bate and our organist Colin Druce, travelled to Frankfurt to take part in a joint concert with a choir there. Jon Douglas reports:

There will be many memorable stories about the heat of June 2026, but several hours of rehearsals on what was literally the hottest day on record in Germany (over 40°C), has to stand as some sort of milestone in the annals of RLSBC singing. Our hosts and choral partners in Frankfurt were the German American Community Choir, and they made great efforts to provide plenty of water and fruit drinks, alongside an amazing spread of food for lunch on that long day. Many of them also generously provided accommodation for some of us from RLSBC, and then found extra things to do. Some had the cooler fun of visiting outdoor swimming pools or lakes on Sunday morning.

The GACC was founded in 1973 in the days when there was a large base of American armed forces in Frankfurt, forming friendly relations between Americans and the local population. Although military forces have been wound down since the end of the Cold War, the choir continues with membership including Germans, Americans, and other nationalities, amounting to around 180 in all.

About 25 RLSBC singers made the trip. Some flew out to Frankfurt, and others took the Eurostar to Brussels and intercity trains onwards. There were plenty of horror stories about queues in the airports and missed trains, and even trains cancelled due to a forest fire near Frankfurt Airport, and all made so stressful, having to wait in the heat. At least one person’s journey lasted until after midnight, and then we were all expected at Sankt Bonifatius Church bright and cheerful at 9.30 to start vocal warm-up (other types of warm up being entirely unnecessary).

The Church has a large balcony and organ loft and we rehearsed and performed from up there, placed around the organ itself, with Colin’s organist’s seat right in the middle. The interior was cooler than outside, but it was still hot up on the balcony, and the heat affected the organ tuning, requiring ingenuity from Colin deciding which sets of pipes to use. It was a pleasure to meet Evelyn Ruf, the GACC MD, who conducted the Bernstein and half of the Duruflé for our concert. We joined about 55 singers from GACC making a total of about 80 for the performance. We also had to find room for a harp and the percussion instruments for the Bernstein. As ever the percussion was a small but very important part, and this was expertly played for us by Andreas Nowak.

Concert day was 4°C cooler according to online weather, but it didn’t feel like it inside the church, unfortunately, nevertheless everyone was cheerful and supported each other, and the performance seemed to be good. The audience was about 170 people and they responded with very generous applause, not least for the wonderful harpist, Anna Petrovitsch, who completed the concert with Saint-Saëns’ Fantasia for Harp. Her playing was absolutely beautiful, and it was amazing to discover that she’s only 18 years old.

Finally we all enjoyed a convivial dinner at a traditional local restaurant where they offer their own Apfelwein, a Hesse speciality, to go with their Frankfurt dishes. Most of us then journeyed home in the noticeably cooler weather on Monday. It was a great trip, all very exciting and enjoyable.

We look forward to welcoming members of the GACC on a return trip to Leamington Spa for our concert on Saturday July 18th.