The Annual Benefit Concert on Sunday, May 15, at 5:00 p.m. takes as its theme this year ‘Music for Royal Occasions.’ England’s Queen Elizabeth II, as well as becoming the longest reigning monarch this year, also celebrates her ninetieth birthday this month. This affords us a wonderful opportunity to present so many pieces associated with Royal occasions down the centuries, and will include, of course, Hubert Parry’s ever-popular anthem ‘I was glad’, together with William Mathias’ ‘Let the people praise thee, O God’, composed for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, and “we wait for thy loving kindness, O God’ of Sir William McKie, composed for the wedding of the then Princess Elizabeth to Philip Mountbatten in 1947. There will also be the opportunity for the audience to join in the singing of some of the great hymns associated with these occasions, including ‘All people that on earth do dwell’, to the arrangement of Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Simon Morley will conduct the choir, with Kevin Page at the organ. They will be joined by brass and percussion of the Florida Orchestra. A reception, to which all are warmly invited, follows in the Parish Hall.
