Waverley Singers’ jubilee celebrations continued with a sold-out concert, Midsummer Nocturnes, at St Mary’s Frensham on June 22, writes Sarah Hard.

The concert featured an ambitious programme of music for choir accompanied by different combinations of piano, cello and clarinet.

Clear highlight was the premiere of Owain Park’s Five Nocturnes, a commission funded by a bequest from local resident and choir member Josephine Reader who died in 2018.

Five Nocturnes received a warm ovation from the capacity audience in the idyllic setting of St Mary’s Church in the presence of the composer.

The choir, superbly conducted by Richard Pearce and accompanied by Ian Scott on clarinet and Josephine Spooner on cello, gave a committed performance of the complex and stylistically challenging music, which sets five poets exploring different aspects of night-time, including Rumi and Christina Rossetti.

The five short pieces, or Nocturnes, reflected varying moods: by turns rhapsodic, contemplative, hypnotic and hymn-like, sensitively setting the text with solo instruments weaving in and out of the texture alongside the piano.

The rest of the concert comprised vocal music by Becky McGlade for cello and choir, including Bach, Rachmaninov and Palestrina, on the theme of the natural world. Particularly notable was Ripple Effect by Sarah Quartel, with a beautifully sung semi-chorus, which underscored the part we play in preserving the environment.

Interspersed among the music, Rosie May Jones read several of her poems which movingly described the significance and beauty of the natural world.

A couple of organ solos by Philip Scriven and two solo clarinet pieces completed a magical and varied musical programme reminding us of mankind’s fragile relationship with the rural landscape Josephine Reader knew and loved so well.

The choir is hosting The Waverley Sing - a free day of singing songs from the stage - at St Andrew’s Church in Farnham on July 12 between 10.30am and 4pm.