Royal Leamington Spa Bach Choir

A packed St Mark’s Church in Leamington reverberated to the sound of sackbuts and cornetts on Saturday July 13th, as the choir gave of their very best for Lee Dunleavy’s final concert, a magnificent performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610.

The concert opened dramatically with Lee and the vocal soloists processing up the aisle of the church accompanied by a beating drum. The acoustic potential of this space was further exploited in the second half of the concert, when the second tenor soloist and two violinists provided an arresting echo effect, out of sight at the back of the church. In the Sonata sopra Sancta Maria, five sopranos from the choir sang from the high altar, their voices soaring above the virtuoso instrumental parts. And as the work reached its final climax in the Magnificat, the choir, soloists and orchestra filled the whole church with thrilling sound.

We were fortunate to have six fine soloists from the Royal Academy of Music, who tackled the huge technical challenges of Monteverdi’s vocal parts with confidence and skill. Kirsty O’Neill (soprano) was a choral scholar at Royal Holloway College, London, and has worked with a number of professional choirs; in 2018, she co-founded her own choir, Recordare. Emily Varney (soprano), a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music, enjoys performing in a wide range of opera, oratorio and concert repertoire, both within the UK and also abroad. James Edgeler (tenor), another Royal Holloway choral scholar, began singing as a cathedral chorister and is particularly passionate about Art Song. Robert Folkes (tenor) studied music at Fitzwilliam College Cambridge and has also been a cathedral chorister from an early age. Thomas Butler (bass) was at St John's College Cambridge, where he took part in broadcasts and recordings with the chapel choir, and he is a Lay Vicar at Westminster Abbey. Anton Kirchhoff (bass) studied at the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule in Düsseldorf before coming to England; as a boy soprano, he sang the role of Miles in Britten's Turn of the Screw at Cologne Opera. We were privileged to be joined by such talented young singers, and we wish them all the very best as they complete their studies and progress their professional careers.

Lee reflected before the concert that his professional relationship with Kah-Ming Ng and the period instrument ensemble Charivari Agréable went back to the earliest days of his musical career, so it seemed particularly appropriate that they should also share his very last concert. The ensemble included not only sackbuts and cornetts, and of course baroque violins and baroque cello, but also violone, chitarrone and baroque triple harp. Although these instruments may seem strange and exotic now, they would all have been familiar in Monteverdi’s day, and they perfectly recreated the sound world of St Mark’s Venice in the early seventeenth century.

It was an emotional evening for Lee and the choir as we said good-bye to him after four fantastic years of music making together. His tenure as Musical Director began during lockdown, a challenging time for the choir with no opportunity to sing together or to perform publicly. Since then, Lee has brought us on by leaps and bounds in musical terms, presided over an impressive increase in membership, and programmed and conducted a number of truly memorable concerts which have garnered high praise from our audiences, the local press and professional colleagues. The choir had already held a farewell party for Lee, and after the concert the choir’s President, the Mayor of Leamington Spa Cllr Judith Clarke, presented him with a memento of his time with us in the form of a collage of all the concert programmes.

Happy memories of this and many other splendid concerts, and the lasting benefits of the huge amount of hard work that Lee has put into training the choir during his four years with us, are the precious legacy which Lee leaves the RLSBC as he moves on to the next chapter of his life, as Father Lee Dunleavy. Every blessing to you and Sally, Lee!

Clive Peacock's review of the concert in Warwickshire World can be found here: please click here