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Some recent concerts by

Advent service with music, 2 December  2007
Protestant Church / Dreifaltigkeitskiirch, Luxembourg

At the invitation of the Protestant community, Intermedii contributed Advent pieces by Jacob Handl, Melchior Franck, David Willcocks, Hoerbert Howells, Jos Kinzé and Benjamin Britten.

On Monday 18 September 2006
Intermedii, The Art of Music and The Melusina Consort of Viols

with Julia Knowles (piano)

took part in a celebration concert for Jim Foulkes

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On Saturday 23 October 2004 Intermedii joined 
Les Amis du Chant, the chamber orchestra
l'Estro Armonico  and the 
Ensemble Vocal du Luxembourg

in the NUIT DU CHANT 2004

in Bettange-sur-Mess (Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg).

For this concert Intermedii was joined by
Kristina Mascher (soprano) and Jim Foulkes and Mick Swithinbank (tenors)
in a varied programme ranging from madrigals to Gershwin arrangements.

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Festival de chorales, Eglise de Chevagny-sur-Guye, Burgundy

April 2004

For its first-ever appearances in this choral festival in southern Burgundy, Intermedii was delighted to be joined by Hilary Brooks, a professional singer from the UK standing in for Annette Wollwert-Goerens, and our good friend Jim Foulkes of the Luxembourg ensemble The Art of Music, replacing Walter Perkins.  Both were appearing with Intermedii for the first - and hopefully not the last - time.

On Saturday 24 April Intermedii performed works by Thomas Tallis, Robert Parsons, Giuseppe Pittoni, Arvo Pärt, Claude Debussy, Edward Elgar and Robert Pearsall.  These were preceded by a performance by the Clunysia choir from Cluny, conducted by Georges Kierschowski, of works ranging from 15th-century settings to a song by Jacques Brel.

On Sunday 25 April Intermedii was preceded by the Ad Libitum choir from Blanzy, which performed a fascinating medley of motets, folksongs, popular songs and spirituals, and followed by A Contrario, another eight-voice lineup which gave us (inter alia) part songs from various periods, madrigals and Gershwin arrangements.  Both ensembles again featured Georges Kierschowski as either conductor or singer.

Intermedii's scheduled French and English madrigals and part songs at this concert were followed, at popular request, by repeat performances of Arvo Pärt's Magnificat and Claude Debussy's Trois chansons de Charles Duc d'Orléans.

A Ceremony of Carols 

December 2002

Monday 9 December, Protestant Church (Eglise de la Sainte Trinité, Dreifaltigkeitskirche), rue de la Congrégation, Luxembourg

Tuesday 10 December, Eglise de Bettange-sur-Mess, GD Luxembourg

                  

 

Barbara Hall and La Vigar - sopranos

Annette Wollwert-Goerens and Nancy Coons - altos

Kerry Turner and Walter Perkins - tenors

Colin Buckland and Chris Vigar – basses

Geneviève Conter - harp

 

The proceeds of both concerts were donated to the Luxembourg charity Hëllef fir Cambodge (Aid for Cambodia).
 

 

 

 

Spring soirée

April 2002 

On 28 April 2002 Intermedii presented a spring soirée of romantic chamber works, followed by liquid refreshment for the audience and performers, at the home of Edward and Philippa Seymour in Oetrange. The programme included:

Edward Elgar:  My Love dwelt in a Northern Land
Charles Stanford:  The Blue Bird
Robert Pearsall:  Lay a Garland
Intermedii à 8

Franz Schubert:
 Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the Rock) for soprano, clarinet and piano (Barbara Hall, Jean-Philippe Vivier, Julia Knowles)

Gestillte Sehnsucht (Johannes Brahms) for alto, viola and piano
Schöne Wiege meiner Leiden (Robert Schumann) for alto and piano
Annette Wollwert-Goerens, Kris Landsverk, Julia Knowles

  Richard Strauss:
Alphorn for voice, horn and piano (Nancy Coons, Kerry Turner, Kris Landsverk)

Johannes Brahms:
 Liebeslieder Walzer
 Intermedii à 8; Julia Knowles, Kris Landsverk (piano)

Intermedii and the Highworth School Chamber Choir 
in concert

May 2001

A highly varied concert held in Lellig Church, Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, on 27 May in which the Highworth School Chamber Choir (see below) performed sacred pieces by Hildegard von Bingen, Francis Poulenc and Maurice Duruflé, music from Purcell's King Arthur and arrangements by its conductor, Chris Carden-Price, of songs by Irving Berlin, Tom Lehrer and Glenn Miller.  Intermedii performed a selection of spirituals, part songs by Charles Stanford, Richard Rodney Bennett and Samuel Barber, and folk-song arrangements by Peter Knight and David Willcocks.  All performers joined forces for the final item, There is No Rose by John Joubert.  The Lellig municipality, which witnessed Intermedii's very first performance in 1994, kindly provided a reception for audience and performers after the concert.

Intermedii was proud to be able to host this joint concert with the Highworth School Chamber Choir from Ashford, Kent, England. This exceptional girls' choir, founded in 1988, usually numbers around 18 and takes its members from the top four years of the school.  Its repertoire ranges from the Middle Ages to the present day, and includes anything from sacred Renaissance motets to Barbershop pirated from the Yale Song Book.  Most pieces are unaccompanied, but others make use of the fact that some of the choir's members are fine instrumentalists.  The choir's first performance was at a dinner at the University of Kent, and it regularly sings Evensong at Canterbury Cathedral at around Easter time.  It performed Peter Maxwell Davies's Seven Songs Home in front of the composer himself, by invitation at Christ Church College, Canterbury, and it sustains a busy programme of recitals and concerts, mostly for local charities and societies.  All this activity bore fruit when the choir sought local support and sponsorship for its second tour of the USA in 2000, in the course of which it made new friends on both sides of the Atlantic.

Christmas and Advent 2001 

Readings and carols for Christmas
Amahl and the Night Visitors by Gian-Carlo Menotti

Monday 17 December 2001, Villa Louvigny, Luxembourg

Following requests for a repeat of its "animated concert" production of Menotti's much-loved opera, written for US television in 1951 and first performed by Intermedii in January 2001 with OPL's Kris Landsverk on piano, Intermedii performed the work for the second time on Monday 17 December 2001 (still in Menotti's 90th birthday year and the 50th anniversary year of the opera's première), preceded by a selection of Christmas readings and carols.  For the first half of the concert Intermedii was joined by five readers, Eamonn Breslin, Jan Horsburgh, Giovanna Baviera, British Ambassador Gordon Wetherell and Jim Foulkes.  Chris Vigar, suffering from strained vocal cords, was replaced in the carols and as King Melchior by Tom Osborne, who gave a riveting performance at very short notice while Chris took over Tom's less taxing former role of Bass Shepherd.  The art slides shown during the performance were engineered by Steven Weinberg and cued by Jackie Fleming.  As before, the venue was the concert hall in the former RTL headquarters, Villa Louvigny, and the event was followed by a vin d' honneur for audience and performers. For a synopsis of the Amahl story, click here.

Dramatis personae:

Le programme de Noël d'Intermedii du 17 décembre 2001 a consisté non seulement de chants et de lectures bibliques en langue anglaise autour de la naissance du Christ (d'après les célèbres Nine Lessons and Carols radiodiffusées chaque année de la King's College Chapel de Cambridge), mais également d' une exécution en concert animé de l'émouvant opéra Amahl and the Night Visitors de Gian-Carlo Menotti, composé en 1951 pour la télévision des Etats-Unis et devenu une partie indispensable de la célébration de Noël pour des millions de familles de ce pays.  Il s'agit d'un garçon boîteux qui, avec sa mère veuve, rencontre les Rois Mages en route pour Bethléhem et devient lui-même l'objet d'un miracle. Cette version de l'opéra a été accompagnée au piano par Kris Landsverk, alto solo de l'Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, et suivie d'un vin d'honneur.

Messe de Minuit pour Noël by Marc-Antoine Charpentier 
Amahl and the Night Visitors by Gian-Carlo Menotti

Sunday 21 January 2001, Villa Louvigny, Luxembourg

Intermedii's first performance of Amahl and the Night Visitors (see above for description) was preceded in the first half of the concert by the famous Midnight Mass for Christmas by Charpentier (1643-1704), with its lively bourrée rhythms and unique blend of drama and devotion, crafted with the composer's typical mastery of harmony and counterpoint.  The instrumental accompaniment for the mass was provided by Attila Keresztesi and Karen Turner (violin), Katrin Reutlinger (cello) and Julia Knowles (harpsichord).