by Morris Bishop

The charity concert in aid of Concordia, given by Choir and Orchestra of Collegium Musicum Costa del Sol, together with the Camerata Singers in the Iglesia de la Encarnacion Marbella on 28^th May, was the second performance of a program of  three interpretations of the passion of Christ.

Words like Complexity – Difficulty – Multilinguistics,  are no obstacle for Director of music Annemarie Philipps with president and music arranger Delyth Bressington as  they fearlessly took on some of the most challenging Liturgical Music in the repertoire.  The choir of 100 voices were faced with librettos in Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic as well as English,

The program opened with Antonio Vivaldi’s Nicene Credo. This was followed by Bach’s Herr Unser Herrscher, which is the opening chorus of the St. Johns Passion.  The 50 strong Orchestra  was then centre stage with a performance of Aaron Copland’s ‘iconic’ Fanfare For The Common Man, and I do believe there was a Timpanist among their members! It was brilliant.

The main work of the evening. In celebration of his 75^th. Birthday was the man voted ‘The most popular living classical composer of our time, Welshman Karl Jenkins and his Stabat Mater Dolorosa. This is a medieval 13^th century poem that has been set to music by many composers in the past and tells the story of Mary’s torment at the crucifixion of her son.

The ebullient Annemarie Philipps was inspirational and the superb musicality of the multi-talented guest Mezzo soprano Bev Lee Harling was quite mesmerising and so pure to listen to, incidentally she is the sister of Alison, the leader of the orchestra. Having listened to this piece several times in the past, I found their rendition as good as it gets.

Every one of the musicians and voices should be extremely proud of their achievements and of the pleasure they have given to all of tonight’s audience, for it was truly    “JOY UNLIMITED”

The society are always looking for new instrumentalists and singers to join them – to find out more contact the secretary Driekje Lawson  secretaria@colmus.org   952775492

Next from Collegium Musicum’ is the Christmas concert in Fuengirola Sunday 15^th December and Marbella Tuesday 17^th December. – to receive information about this, become a ‘Friend of Collegium Musicum and put your name on their email list.To find our more go to their web site www.colmus.org

Morris Bishop