Summer School 2007 - French Tour
After intense rehearsals, and two magnificent concerts at the Cheese and Grain, as part of the grand finale of this year's Frome Festival , the Somerset Youth Orchestra and the Frome Festival Chorus set off, in the early hours of Monday morning, for their French tour.
Staying nearby in the attractive town of Angers on the Loire , the first concert by the ensemble was on Tuesday at Château-Gontier, Frome's twin town. After rehearsals they were invited to Salle des Fetes where a very warm welcome awaited them from Bruno Herissé, the premier Maire Adjoint, first deputy Maire of Château-Gontier and Monsieur Pierre Cadoret the Chairman of the twinning association.
In his welcoming speech Bruno said how delighted he was that this production had come to their town. He enthused about how much he had enjoyed his visit to the first weekend of the Frome Festival , which he attended as part of the annual twining association visits.
Martin Bax, Festival Director responded by saying that after he decided to start a Festival in Frome, eight years ago, he went to Château-Gontier with the twinning association and announced that Frome was to have a festival and that their town was the first to know.
He said that three years ago, while he was Mayor of Frome, it was decided to move the twinning meetings from November to July during each town's festival. He continued that eight years ago, having visited their beautiful town with its magnificent concert hall, his ambition was to bring them a Festival production one day. To mark the occasion Martin then presented Bruno with a piece of local pottery by Philip Wood.
The performance in the fabulous Théâtre des Ursulines attended by Philippe Henri,the Maire of Château-Gontier, was greeted as a resounding success by the enthusiastic and well attended audience.
Our eagerly anticipated first concert in Paris , in the beautiful Church on the Seine Saint Louis-en-I'lle proved the perfect venue for our chosen works of the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony and the Brahms Requiem. Joined by the organist Jorris Sauquet, playing on the magnificent recently refurbished Grand organ. The choir and orchestra rose to the occasion under the inspired and brilliant leadership of conductor Jason Thornton with the excellent soloists baritone Gavin Carr and soprano Lesley-Jane Rogers.
The orchestra and singers filled the church with glorious sound and the capacity audience rose at the end with a standing ovation. What a wonderful experience for the young musicians of the orchestra. They will never forget the experience of playing this repertoire with a great choir, superbly prepared by choral master Gavin Carr, in the heart of Paris.
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