2010  MUSIC BY NORTH-WEST COMPOSERS

CONCORD OF SWEET SOUNDS

Rochdale Music Society Reviews

2010  MUSIC BY NORTH-WEST COMPOSERS

recalled by Rosa Marie Staves

The 2010-2011season of concerts presented by the Rochdale Music Society began on Thursday, October 7th with a programme illustrative of the lively mixture of styles to be encountered among the music of composers who belong to the North West Composers Association.

The concert of music by North West Composers revealed the good acoustic properties of the building, which lends itself perfectly to the kind of instrumental and vocal sounds enjoyed by the attentive and appreciative audience on this first collaborative occasion bringing the RMS and NWCA together.

Piano music by Colin Bayliss (left) (Chairman of the NWCA) and David Forshaw (Secretary NWCA) was deftly played by Christopher Pulleyn and the composer respectively. John Peace joined Christopher in some energetic duets by Graham Marshall (Vice-Chairman NWCA), whose ‘Five Whimsies’ were sung with great sympathy by the countertenor David Solomons and Pietà an icon for organ performed with conviction by Parish Church Master of the Music, Philip Lowe.

David Solomons (also a member of the NWCA) accompanied himself on the guitar in performances of four delightfully whimsical songs of his own.
Geoffrey Kimpton (Treasurer NWCA) was the committed viola soloist in his own arrangement of a substantial and lyrical four-movement work he wrote originally for cello and piano, ‘Scope’, in which he was accompanied by John Peace.

Flautist Lesley Reading played the first movement of a Sonatina for Flute A and piano by Colin Bayliss, and also joined Graham Marshall (right) in his Haitian Lullaby with Variants for flute and guitar, a work written earlier this year as part of a disasters’ fund-raising project by the Delian Society, an internet group of composers from all over the world.

The harpsichord voicing of an electronic keyboard made a perfectly acceptable substitute for the guitar in this balanced performance.

This was the first time that Rochdale’s ancient Parish Church of St. Chad had been used as a venue for an RMS concert.