Berkeley and Debussy at St. Bride’s Fleet Street

This year the Annual General Meeting of the Society will be held in the beautiful Wren church of St. Bride’s, Fleet Street (see photo inside back cover), at lunchtime on Friday 18 May. ¹

Music plays an enormous and vital role in the life of St Bride’s. Central to this is a professional choir of 12 adult singers, which sings at morning and evening services every Sunday throughout the year and also provides an enormous variety of music for weddings, funerals, memorial services and carol services. This is the continuation of a long tradition – Henry Purcell’s Te Deum and Jubilate were first performed in the church in 1694, and Thomas Weelkes is buried in the crypt.

The performers in our recital will be Jamie Torrance (guitar), Jonathan Parkin (clarinet) and Sebastian Stanley (piano). Jamie, currently in his final year of the B.Mus performance course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, under the tuition of Professor Allan Neave, was the winner of this year’s Berkeley Guitar Award. He will be performing the Berkeley Sonatina Op. 52. Jonathan has played for several of the major symphony orchestras including the BBC, the R.P.O. and, regularly, with the Philharmonia. He will be accompanied by Sebastian, who has given recitals in many reaches of the globe including the Wigmore Hall. They will be performing Berkeley’s 1928 Sonatine pour clarinette et piano,² as well as music by Debussy. In the lively acoustic of St. Bride’s this should be an enjoyable treat.

The recital, which will be open to the public, will be followed by the AGM where we can report another lively year of activity, and announce future plans. Wine will be served after the meeting.

The Society is grateful to St. Bride’s for the opportunity to hold our meeting and recital in this historic church.