Sir John Rutter joins New Sussex Singers for Come And Sing day

SussexWorld

New Sussex Singers are delighted to be offering a Come And Sing day with Sir John Rutter in the year he celebrates his 80th birthday.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Really lovely

00:06this afternoon to speak to Seb Charlesworth, Music Director of New Sussex Singers. Now,

00:11you've got a fabulous event coming up, haven't you? It's Come and Sing, but it's not just Come

00:15and Sing, it's Come and Sing with Sir John Rutter in the year in which he celebrates his 80th

00:21birthday. And that's quite something to have organised this. How did it happen? And you must

00:26be so pleased. Yeah, absolutely delighted that first he actually said yes to our invitation. I

00:32think it was a little bit of a shot in the dark that whether he would be able to fit it into his

00:37busy schedule. But he happened to be doing a bit of a run of workshops, partly because within this

00:45workshop we're going to be looking at some of his music from his brand new piece which just had its

00:49world premiere a couple of weekends back called The Dancing Tree. And we're going to be looking at

00:54three excerpts from that piece during the workshop as well, with obviously Sir John leading the whole

00:59thing. And we are doing a concert, the New Sussex Singers are doing a concert of Rutter music

01:06primarily, or music that Rutter's had a great inspiration on. And that's happening a couple of

01:12weeks afterwards. It all fell into place. In Lewis, it all just fell into place on the 28th of June.

01:17And so we just had a thought, oh, maybe Rutter will come do a workshop on the on the pieces we're

01:22working on. And he even one-upped us and said, well, how about not just on those pieces? Let's

01:28just do a whole like a big old day of it and do all this other stuff as well, plus my new piece.

01:33And we thought, well, absolutely fantastic.

01:34Yeah. Oh, it sounds brilliant. And when you have someone of his standing for the day,

01:38what do you gain? What do your participants, your singers gain from working with someone

01:43of his reputation? Yeah, I think, I think, I mean, obviously there's the years and years

01:49of experience he has working at the highest level with professional ensembles, professional singers.

01:54I think it's a pretty rare thing to have a living composer and a living composer of his stature,

02:00particularly, who is not only a composer, but actually a very experienced conductor. And so he

02:04can really bring insight, not only to all the music that he's been passionate about and loved all his

02:09life within the classic choral repertoire, but also particularly to work on his pieces and having

02:16the insight of what it is that he wants, particularly from the music. And particularly with the more

02:22well-known stuff, how that might differ from how other conductors do it. I think it's a really

02:27interesting insight to see what a composer actually wants from their music that they haven't managed

02:34to get off the top of the page. And it sounds great. It comes at a really good time for the

02:37New Sussex Singers, insofar as you were saying, that the choir is really moulded into its own

02:43identity, hasn't it? And you're in a strong, successful place. Yeah, it has. We've really,

02:48in the last couple of years, the membership has really, really bloomed. We've got a really core

02:56number of really, really strong, experienced singers who I can basically program pretty much whatever I

03:02like. And that leads us to be able to have very, not experimental, but very interesting programs.

03:07And I always try and program things that are going to be really appealing to audiences, but we'll mix

03:12things that are known or by composers that are known with new voices in choral music. And I think

03:19we're kind of living through a bit of an age of, it's a golden era of choral music, particularly in

03:25England. We're getting some amazing music being written by all sorts of composers from both the

03:31traditional classical background, but also from jazz backgrounds, people like Will Todd, writing just

03:35really interesting music that will challenge and delight choirs and audiences alike.

03:42It sounds brilliant. So it's Come and Sing with Sir John Rotter, Saturday, June the 7th.

03:47So lovely to speak to you. Congratulations on securing this and good luck with all that follows.

03:52Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thanks.

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