BREMF – From the Four Corners of Europe – Greg Skidmore (conductor)

It takes a brave conductor to prepare an ad-hoc choir for even an informal concert of unaccompanied Renaissance polyphony in the course of just one day. The eager choir assembled for this workshop was perhaps too large for the clarity that we now expect from Brighton’s well drilled amateur choirs but that didn’t matter because there were no passengers – each singer was focussed on the conductor’s clear beat and direction. It made for exciting listening, and any errors were quickly remedied by the more experienced voices. Their finale, Gesualdo’s ‘Laboravi in gemitu meo’, was a tremendous risk yet held together.

BREMF 2018 begins properly next month with a rich and varied programme, including plenty of glorious unaccompanied Renaissance polyphony that members of this choir will now appreciate all the more!

St Martin’s Church, 29 September 2018

Rating: