Royal Leamington Spa Bach Choir

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East meets West: the challenge

Sunday 6th July 2025

In our concert at All Saints’ church, Leamington Spa, on Saturday 5th July 2025, the choir rose to a new challenge: that of performing a work based on the Indian classical tradition, alongside music from the western baroque repertoire with which we and our audiences are so familiar.

The evening began with J S Bach’s Magnificat, a work we have sung several times before; although it is complex and requires concentration, it is well within our comfort zone as a Bach choir. After the interval, our vocal soloists, the orchestra and the choir all had to slip into a very different musical idiom in order to perform This Love Between Us: Prayers for Unity by Reena Esmail, a piece written in 2016 by a young Indian-American composer. Just to add to the challenge, the piece sets texts from the seven major religions to be found in India, in seven different languages!

As Reena Esmail explains in her introduction to the piece, not only are all the texts she has chosen about unity, brotherhood/ sisterhood and the need for peace, but “Each movement contains a unique combination of Indian and Western classical… techniques, styles and forms“. She goes on to say: “But even more than uniting musical practices, this piece unites people from two different musical traditions: a sitar and tabla join the choir and baroque orchestra. Each of the musicians is asked to keep one hand firmly rooted in their own tradition and training, while reaching the other hand outward to greet another musical culture”. It felt strange but absolutely wonderful to be singing alongside a sitar and tabla - almost certainly a first for the choir! - and we are immensely grateful to Debipriya Sircar (sitar) and Bhindarjit Neer (tabla), both highly regarded in their own musical communities, for bringing their expertise to our performance.

Our four fantastic vocal soloists, all trained in the western classical tradition, also had to rise to the challenge of a very different way of singing, which they did superbly. Jessica Johnson (soprano) is a graduate of Royal Holloway College London and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and works as a singing tutor in Northamptonshire alongside her concert engagements. Cathy Bell (alto) studied English and Mediaeval Literature at Cambridge and singing at Birmingham Conservatoire before becoming a professional singer specialising in baroque music, with engagements in opera and consort singing as well as concert solos . Gopal Kambo (tenor), a graduate and former choral scholar of St John’s College Cambridge, is also a regular consort singer, and a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, with whom he sang at both the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of King Charles III. Robert Pritchard (bass), who transitioned from euphonium to vocal studies while at the University of Huddersfield, is now a bass lay clerk at Hereford Cathedral as well as a local singing teacher. Special mention must also go to our very own Nicola Deards, who sang the soprano II solo in the Bach Magnificat and joined Jessica and Cathy for the trio movement; we’re so proud of you, Nicola!

Musicians of the Beauchamp Sinfonietta, who are our regular musical partners when an orchestra is required, also relished the challenge of embracing a very different style of playing, and they made some beautiful eastern sounds on their western instruments. We owe huge thanks to Jim Bate, our Musical Director, for his expert coaching in the weeks leading up to the concert, and for so skilfully bringing all the different elements together on the day. We look forward to lots more musical challenges next season; do visit our concerts and events page (please click here) to find out about the exciting programmes we have in store for you!