by Julia Meredith

Musicians, this is your day to shine. November 22nd is honoured by choirs and
orchestras great and small, around the world, to celebrate St Cecilia, patron saint of
music. In this spirit of thankfulness, Huanui Music Society organized our evening’s
concert, to fill Town Church with a joyful noise and appreciate the host of musical talent
on our island.
The sense of a special occasion was heralded by the haunting strains of bagpipes
carrying through the salty air. South African champion piper and Guernsey advocate,
Nick Taitz, reeled in an expectant audience (and an odd Friday-night reveller a little
worse for the record-beating proximity of Town Church to the Albion Pub) like moths to a
lantern.
Inside the Church, all was glowing with warmth and anticipation. Guernsey’s musicians,
teachers and performers, had selected a feast of different styles and instruments to gild
the occasion.
The evening launched with Stephen le Prevost on the organ, Bach’s Fantasia in C
minor, BWV 562. Filling the air in a shimmering rush, he wove harmonies and
counterpoint into a lustrous fabric that seemed to canopy the vaults in velvet.
Sam Cole on the violin next, accompanied on piano by Elena Fedorenko, brought us the
quintessentially Hungarian Czardas, by Vittorio Monti. It exudes the mercurial
emotionality of Eastern Europe – sombre, effervescent, melancholy and exuberant.
Requiring lightning-fast switches in technique, they captured the mood to perfection;
Sam’s nifty skittering’s in the topmost register almost made me want to giggle with
fearful delight.
Next came a work by Huanui’s composer in residence, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, and
Reflection. Trumpeter James Hatton’s sensitive and expressive trumpet inhabited the
introspection of the piece, heightened by Town Church’s spacious acoustics.
Clearly warmed up, James Hatton then delighted us with Solo de Concours, by Theo
Charlier, a demanding showcase of the trumpet’s virtuosic capabilities. James brought
out the different sound-characters this instrument can produce – while still retaining
the generous soulfulness that catches you in the throat.
His final piece was Alexander Goedicke’s Concert Etude. This James delivered with a
high degree of technical brilliance, beautifully matched by Stephen le Prevost on the
piano. It felt like a dazzling game of tag or a wild dance, perfectly surefooted for all its
breakneck speed; we were the giddy ones trying to keep up. An exhilarating
performance.

A change of pace came with soprano Debbie Bideau singing ‘If there are Angels’, by
Cecilia McDowall. Exploring themes of spirituality and hope, Debbie took the folk
harmonies and delivered them with an operatic texture, giving the piece a
contemplative richness.
Violinist Nicole Wyatt and Elena followed with Wieniawski’s Romanze, from his Violin
Concerto No 2. Warm and shapely, Nicole’s tone brought a touching emotional charge
to the evening. They then dialed up the temperature with Bizet’s Habanera from
Carmen: full-on passion set to a driving rhythm that captured the provocative taunting
strut of Carmen, flirting with danger, careless of the outcome.
Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s composition, One Earth, with the Rhapsodie Girls Choir,
articulates the angst of our time: the beauty and fragility of the planet infused with a
lingering sense of unease. The Choir stayed to bring us Here in my Heart, by Sarah
Quartel; their expressive young voices, tight-knit and pure pitched, gave a sweet
poignancy to the words.
Sam Cole, having swapped his violin for the piano (!), and Elena returned, to play an
absolute blinder of a two-piano showpiece: Snowflakes by Alexander Tsafsman .
This Ukrainian-born pioneer of Soviet jazz, suppressed during the Communist era, was
rehabilitated after Stalin’s death; here, his gleefully impish style is pure joie de vivre.
Sam and Elena were perfectly in sync with their dizzying hurtles across the keyboards,
and gave us the full Ragtime sense of playing like there was no tomorrow. We could
have asked for an encore there and then.
The final work went to Stephen le Prevost on the organ. Peter Maxwell Davies’s most
beloved work, I believe, is the gentle, introspective, unforgettable Farewell to
Stromness. Written in protest against a proposed nuclear power station, it is the
composer’s love-letter to the Orkneys, and resonates with a sense of place in its
simplicity and tenderness.
On the day that St Cecilia is celebrated worldwide, conjuring up a programme of
international quality from performers within our small island community felt like the
best cause for celebration I could imagine.
Our thanks to Huanui Music Society, and to Town Church for the use of their wonderful
atmospheric space.

Julia Meredith, November 2024.