Saturday 3 March 2012
Overbury Church 8pm
The Songmen

This Tewkesbury based a cappella group has an enviable reputation as one of the country’s finest and most versatile. The Songmen have a wide experience of classical, sacred and popular music; they commission exciting new works and perform their own original material. Their programme for Parish Music, Sacred, Soul’n Swing, begins with sacred music by renaissance masters, Victoria and Byrd, and moves into the secular world of the same period before arriving in modern times with madrigals by John Rutter and folk song and popular arrangements. Whatever they sing, the universal principles of perfect tonal blend, colour and precise intonation are to be found in every performance. The Songmen had a busy 2011 singing across the UK and Europe with concerts at Merton College Oxford and Tewkesbury Abbey, for Music Societies, the Salvation Army, The Royal British Legion and more. The climax was a tour of Germany, headlining the Neustadter Musik Sommer Festival, and taking part in the Tolosa International Choral Contest.The group has recently released two exciting discs: sacred music from the Renaissance through to modern commissioned works and a studio album of jazz and pop classics featuring original arrangements by members of the group. In their Education Outreach Programme the Songmen lead master classes at schools such as Dean Close, Oundle and Bedford Modern , run workshops for choral societies and judge competitions.

Parish Music is particularly proud to be able to present a concert by Magdalena Filipczak, one of today’s finest violinists. Polish-born Magdalena graduated from Music Schools in Malbork and Gdansk. Since 2004 she has been living in London where she has completed violin studies (BMus, MMus, MPerf) at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Professor Krzysztof Smietana. Currently she holds a prestigious Artist Fellowship at the Guildhall School as part of which she teaches violin at the City University of London. Magdalena is a member of the Artimus Ensemble, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of the Devonia Concert Series and is also one of the artists of the Zetland Foundation. She has appeared at the Wigmore Hall, Spitalfields Church and the Barbican Centre as well as in Europe and North and South America.

Magdalena and her accompanist, Serbian-born pianist Viktor Bijelovic, will play short works by Prokofiev, Wieniawski and Britten; also the violin sonata by César Franck. Victor has experience as a solo pianist and chamber musician in venues around Europe and has performed in front of HRH Prince Charles twice: at Buckingham Palace as part of Prince Charles's 50th Birthday Celebrations, and in May 2006 to inaugurate the Tent at St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace.

Fleuri

The members of baroque trio Fleuri share a passion for the music of Handel’s London and folk-inspired baroque repertoire from around the British Isles including Eire. Their programme for us, based in London and Edinburgh, has already been performed at the Handel House Museum and the Edinburgh Fringe. The Thistle and the Rose includes music by John Playford, Ignatius Sancho, James Oswald, Tobias Hume and Duncan Burnett.

Laura Justice, recorders, Jennifer Bullock, viola da gamba and baroque ‘cello, and Bridget Cunningham, harpsichord, formed Fleuri in 2002 after graduating from the Royal College of Music in London. Specialising in seventeenth and eighteenth century repertoire, they were winners of the Century Fund Prize for Early Music. They have performed at the Chester Summer Festival, the London Handel Festival and for the Tilford Bach Society. Concert venues have included St George's Church Hanover Square, Windsor Castle, Cobham Hall in Kent, and St George's Church Bloomsbury.

Fleuri’s members have successful performing, conducting and teaching careers, and have played with such groups as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, London Early Opera, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and English National Opera. All three are regular members of the chamber group Emerald Baroque, directed by Bridget Cunningham.

Trio Ébano