Cathedral Date for Festival Choir

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Published: 22 May 2008 in Somerset Standard
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Now in its sixth year, Frome Festival Summer School has broken new ground in bringing together singers from all over the region in one hard-working weekend, performing challenging works with professional tuition, good soloists and a top-class young orchestra.This year's event features Bach Mass in B minor and will be conducted by Bath Philharmonia's Jason Thornton.

Past performances have included Carmina Burana, the Berlioz, Verdi and Brahms Requiems and Elgar's The Dream Of Gerontius. For the past two years it has toured Germany and France.

This year the format has changed. To avoid a clash with other Frome Festival events, the Summer School has moved away from the usual July weekend to this May Bank Holiday and will take place from tomorrow to Monday.

The event has also moved away from Frome's Cheese and Grain and is booked for Wells Cathedral, which will be an opportunity to gain a fresh and larger audience.

The chorus is accompanied by one of Britain's finest professional training orchestras, The Amadeus, and it will be joined by soloists Eleanor Bowers Jolly, Jeanette Ager, Robert Gardiner and Gavin Carr, conducted by Jason Thornton.

Mr Thornton said: "It is hard to believe that it is six years since the first Frome Festival Summer School.

"It is not only one of Frome Festival's most outstanding success stories, it has become one of the cultural highlights in the South West of England and continues to go from strength to strength."

On Monday, at Wells Cathedral with the Amadeus Orchestra under Jason Thornton, there a grand performance at 7.30pm.

Tickets cost £18, £15, £12 and £10, from Bath Festivals Box Office on 01225 463 362, Wells Cathedral Shop on 01749 672773 or Wells Tourist Information Centre on 01749 672552.

Jason Thornton has very kindly dedicated this performance in honour of Your Time's editor Dan Biggane's mother, Shirley Lea, who died last year from myeloma, a debilitating form of bone marrow cancer.

There will be a bucket collection after the concert to raise funds for Myeloma UK (registered charity number SC026116), as part of Dan's series of 'Music4Myeloma' concerts.