 ower Machen Festival Rian Evans: Musical Opinion (01/09/2001) The Joyful Company of Singers gave the opening concert of this year’s Lower Machen Festival on 26 June at the Cathedral of St. Woolos in Newport. Under their Director, Peter Broadbent, they gave a fascinating programme of 20th and 21st Century music, the main focus being three works in which the talents of violinist Madeleine Mitchell were pitted against the might of the choir. Mitchell herself was the instigator of the project to extend the choral repertoire in this way. While such a venture is clearly not entirely altruistic, it is typical of this highly imaginative artist to have conceived such a fertile collaboration. Her charismatic playing and musical personality were surely pivotal in inspiring the three composers, Roxanna Panufnik, Jonathan Harvey and Thierry Pécou.
The particular nature of Panufnik’s Undiscover’d Country was conditioned by her discovery of the work of the inventor and philanthropist Joshua Steele. His system of notating speech rhythms and pitches, specifically his transcription of actor David Garrick’s delivery of Hamlet’s Soliloquy To be, or not to be, inspired her to use the Violin as Hamlet and Broadbent’s singers as a Greek Chorus, acting both as detached observers and Hamlet’s alter ego or conscience. The resulting piece was perfectly convincing in terms of sound and emotional dynamic, although whether the audience was any the better equipped to listen through knowing the background to its composition is a moot point.
Jonathan Harvey’s sweet / winterhart sets Shakespeare’s fifth Sonnet and the Romanian Paul Celan’s German poem about the Holocaust Winter. In each, the perfumed essence of flowers is a symbol of hope. The Violin embodies that symbolic process of distillation, a ray of light in a dark and despairing blackness. This piece was neither easy on the mind nor the ear, but in its intensity and starkness it created a strong impression.
Thierry Pécou’s A circle in the Sand also used Shakespeare, this time lines from The Tempest, in rather implausible conjunction with the words for the days of the Mayan calendar, chosen for their magical effect. A circle of choristers, signifying both Caliban’s island and Prospero’s magic circle, surrounded the audience and Madeleine Mitchell. The sensation of being embraced by sound should have been compelling yet the music, with no obvious sense of organic growth, did not conjure a spell in the way that we would have wanted, given the setting and the context of the piece. The description was, dare I suggest, more interesting than the music.
We could not but admire the musicality and enterprise of the Joyful Company of Singers. In Gerald Finzi’s Centenary year their singing of his Seven Poems of Robert Bridges was exemplary, as were the Trois Chansons de Charles d’Orléans by Debussy. But the pieces with Solo Violin were the most vivid and challenging and the Company’s concert all the more memorable for them. 
 eedback from Lulworth Castle
Richard Mason: Festival Goer! (31/08/2001) I just had to send you a quick message to thank you so much for the most
amazing festival I've ever been to.
Having been to every event since the Norfolk one I was at first disappointed
to miss out on Enchanted Garden this year because I could not afford to go
to both. However I think I made the right choice as Lulworth was brilliant.
What a site, what amazing music, what lovely people. Never before have I
seen festival goers willingly clean up the main stage area!!
The Big Chill is a wonderful special thing and I am so glad that I have been
fortunate enough to go to 5 of your festivals.
Keep up the good work, you are providing thousands of people with memories
they will never forget!
One story to prove this is that Lulworth was the first BC event for a friend
of mine. Although he does like chilled music he doesn't really listen to it,
being more a fan of psychadelic / garage etc. However he loved it, said it was
the best festival he's ever been to, and when I asked him if he liked Amba
and The Joyful Company Of Singers he said "they can play that at my funeral
as I drift up to heaven." Praise indeed.
I love the Big Chill.
 hilling out with the grown-ups Sheryl Garratt: The Observer (26/08/2001) It's a warm Sunday afternoon, and I'm stretched on the grass, watching white clouds blow across blue sky, while Norman Jay plays some of my favourite records. It's something he's been doing now for some 20 years. (What can I say? We both started young.) The music hasn't changed so much - Norman's mix of current sounds with classic soul, funk and reggae has never dated - but the settings have. I've seen him play at dank, grungy illegal all-night warehouse parties, at illicit acid house nights, then in beautifully designed superclubs as our culture went mainstream. And now, as yet another sign of the culture's maturity, we're in the grounds of Lulworth Castle, an imposing seventeenth-century hunting lodge by the Dorset coast, now run by English Heritage and taken over for the weekend by The Big Chill for what turned out to be easily the best festival of the summer.
The Big Chill started as a monthly club night at the Union Chapel, London in 1994, providing laidback but innovative music with visuals and performances for a crowd that had grown up with house music but were ready for something different. 'The accent was more on networking and providing an environment where people could socialise rather than just get off their faces,' says co-founder Pete Lawrence. 'People have kids, or decide they want to slow down the speed of life and appreciate some of the detail you miss in clubbing mayhem.'
Word of mouth saw the night grow into a record label, a website, a series of outdoor festivals - even a two-week holiday in Naxos - offering a club atmosphere without the sweat, queues and ear-shattering volume.
Now there's always a chill in the air. A quick search online reveals more than 100 compilations with the word 'chill' in the title. There's Summer Chill and Winter Chill, countless invitations to chill out in Ibiza, of course, but also in Paris and Bombay. This year the Ministry of Sound has taken the trend into the mainstream with its Chill Out compilations. Volume One came out in February, aimed, says Ministry's Mark Rodol, at clubbers wanting a softer soundtrack when they get home at 4am, and an older audience who no longer go to clubs but still want to buy into the culture. They advertised on TV and expected to sell 30-50,000 copies. So far it has sold 493,000. 'It just kept selling. We were getting calls from fortysomethings who liked it. We were surprised, and I think the whole industry has woken up to the fact that there's a new market out there for Portishead/Massive Attack-style music.'
Which brings us back to The Big Chill, a wet weekend in the English countryside with a warm, electronic heart. Highlights included a stunning set from DJs Kruder and Dorfmeister on the Saturday night; walking through an eerily-lit woodland at night on the interactive art trail; Future Sound of London mixing Hawkwind into The Cult followed by the Osmonds, Jimi Hendrix and Adam Ant; a lively debate on what it means to be English in the Media Tent led by Billy Bragg and London radio presenter Henry Bonsu; my son bouncing across a field on his yellow space hopper with two clubbers jumping alongside high on something more chemical; and the stunning big-screen visuals accompanying Bent's brilliant Sunday night set.
For me, the biggest revelation was Tom Middleton of Global Communications, who DJed accompanied by a 25-strong choir called The Joyful Company of Singers. The result was achingly beautiful. Hearing it while sitting in the warm night air, the castle lit up behind the stage, was magical. Even our five-year-old was entranced.
But the real star was the atmosphere. Child-friendly without being dominated by children, it took the best elements of Creamfields (the dance tent) and Glastonbury (the Green Fields). Even though there were 7,000 people on site, it felt like a gathering of friends. Club culture has come a long way since Norman Jay was breaking into empty houses in west London to hold his first parties. But it's never lost its capacity to surprise.
Norman Jay will be at the Notting Hill Carnival at the junction of West Row and Southern Row. The Big Chill's Glisten compilation is out on 24 September.
 fter Lulworth Pete Lawrence: www.bigchill.net (21/08/2001) Having a great team around us also means that I can now actually get out there and see the festival for myself throughout the weekend. For me there were many many goosebump-inducing highlights, not least Norman Jay's Good Times celebration and the utterly spellbinding Joyful Company of Singers' performance of Tom Middleton's work.....
(more at http://www.bigchill.net/flash/index.html)
 inging unwavering in excellence Graham Hewitt: (Chichester) West Sussex Observer (14/06/2001) Fauré's Requiem never fails to inspire all who listen to it.
The performance given by the City of London Sinfonia and the Joyful Company of Singers at Boxgrove priory was certainly no exception.
The radiant singing of the choir movingly conveyed the intensely dramatic quality of the sacred music.
The singing was unwavering in its excellence. With firm and strong delivery every word was clear. "Libera Me" and the famous "In Paradisum" were elegant and moving.
Dominic Colingwood, a chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral, sang "Pie Jesu" with delicacy and sweetness. His innocent style was very appealing by the audience.
Singing with expressive warmth and vigour, Stephen Roberts sang the baritone solos. He displayed an enormous range of expression giving grace and power to the solo "Libera Me".
The founding conductor of the Joyful Company of Singers, the colourful Peter Broadbent, encouraged the orchestra and choir to giv this performance.
In an earlier contribution to the concert he conducted Mozart's "Symphony No. 29 in A major" achieving music with vitality and intimacy.
Nicholas Ward directed a wonderful and bright version of Rossini's "Sonata a Quattro No. 1 in G major" from the first violin. This work gave the orchestra an opportunity to display their great versatility and style.
The tenth season of Concerts ended as it began filling Boxgrove Priory with some of the world's best-loved music. Grateful thanks are due to the Artistic Director John Wright, the administrator Devina Cameron and all those whose vision and hard work made music at Boxgrove possible.
 aking a splash - Bath Contemporary Music Festival Lynne Walker: The Independent (06/06/2001) The Joyful Company of Singers were joined for three Shakespeare-influenced world premieres by the violinist Madeleine Mitchell. You didn't need any special key to enter the soundworld of "strange noises" in Thierry Pecou's Festival commission, A circle in the sand. The singers, positioned antiphonally, conjure up "a thousand twangling instruments" as a Mayan text is set against lines from The Tempest, while the violin gives out the "sounds and sweet airs" that so entrance Caliban. In her new work Undiscover'd Country, Roxanna Panufnik's theatrical treatment is most effective in the dramatic interaction between solo violin (recreating in music the rhythms and pitches of David Garrick's spoken Hamlet) and choir. Like Pecou, Jonathan Harvey also merges two languages; sweet/winterhart combines Celan with Shakespeare and two cultures.
Garland for Linda Raymond Tuttle: Fanfare Magazine (02/03/2001) "A Garland for Linda" is a fine choral collection. There is much to treasure. The most immediately striking works are those by John Tavener (another of his characteristic bits of Ortherdoxery), and Giles Swayne...
The Joyful Company of Singers nails this music, singing it with total commitment and technical mastery. ["A Garland for Linda"] deserves to be performed "at least 200 times world-wide during the next three years."
 onbridge Music Club Charles Vignoles (11/02/2001) It was a tribute to the audience-pulling powers of one of England’s finest choirs, The Joyful Company of Singers, that Tonbridge Parish Church was packed last Saturday evening (February 10th 2001) in spite of the dismally cold and wet weather. Their concert, the fourth in Tonbridge Music Club’s current season, demonstrated to the full the qualities that have led this choir, under their conductor Peter Broadbent, to be prize-winners in a host of international competitions.
The programme began with a work with which lesser choirs frequently end, Bach’s virtuoso motet Singet dem Herrn, followed by a wonderfully warm and passionate performance of Mendelssohn’s setting of Psalm 43, Richte mich Gott. Here the choir began to show its true colours with some gloriously luscious tones, notably from the alto section.
The sheer depth and richness of sound produced by this choir, coupled with Peter Broadbent’s ability to vary tone and colour according to the work, are among its most impressive qualities. These were revealed superbly in the Russian works, the Sacred Concerto by Rachmaninov and two movements from Smirnov’s Concerto for Choir. Here, in pieces which demand an enormously wide dynamic range, the choir achieved a truly Russian tone-quality, full-bodied and dark, very different from the paler colours of most English choirs.
Later the singers showed themselves to be equally at home in the French language, in the intense sound-world of Poulenc’s Un Soir de Neige, as in the familiar Three Shakespeare Songs of Vaughan Williams - a beautifully shaped performance. On the lighter side, The Joyful Company delighted the audience with their exuberance and panache in delicious performances of Kosma’s Les Feuilles d’Automne and two of Rutter’s Birthday Madrigals.
The choir has a strong commitment to contemporary music, as demonstrated in their moving interpretation of the Lux Aeterna from Requiem for a Tribe Brother by Malcolm Williamson (superb soprano soloists here) and in the exquisite ever-shifting harmonies of Come, Holy Ghost by Jonathan Harvey. Their programme concluded with two songs from A Garland for Linda composed in tribute to Linda McCartney by nine British composers and given its first performance by the choir last year. Paul McCartney’s Nova was both poignant and haunting, while Richard Rodney Bennett’s A Good Night brought the concert to a moving conclusion. As a bonus, Peter Broadbent and his choir sent Tonbridge Music Club’s audience home in truly joyful style with a delightful medley of McCartney songs.
nd then Grainger Hilary Finch: The Times (04/09/2000) And then Grainger. This was a delightful late-night sequence of some of the eccentric and visionary composer's more freaky folksong settings, harmonium, euphonium, electronic solovox and all. But Richard Hickox and the City of London Sinfonia didn't convince us that Grainger was deep within their nervous systems, either, although Stephen Varcoe and the Joyful Company of Singers supplied the wit and flair which some of the instrumental playing lacked.
 keleles Matthew Rye: The Telegraph (04/09/2000) Another great musical eccentric, Percy Grainger, was the subject of Thursday's late Prom, given by the Joyful Company of Singers, and City of London Sinfonia, conducted by Richard Hickox. A mixture of the well known and the long forgotten brought such treats as the first Proms appearance of the Solovox, a crude electrical singing device from the 1930s, crooning away the tune of the Londonderry Air, and a whole array of pluckers and strummers - guitars, mandolins, ukuleles, the lot - in Shallow Brown.
Baritone Stephen Varcoe was a poignantly moving soloist in that particular number, though choir and orchestra were kept on their toes throughout the 90-minute sequence of miniatures, in performances that emphasised Grainger's originality and winning audacity.
he Joyful Company of Singers Archive: This is Worcestershire (01/09/2000) THE Joyful Company, one of Europe's finest chamber choirs, conducted by their founder director Peter Broadbent, were impressive from their first notes of Bach's motet Der Geist hilft unser Swachheit auf. They produced a marvellous flow of beautiful contrapuntal sound.
Part-songs by Elgar: The Shower, a cameo of calm (with a superb final bass note), and by contrast The Fountain, its changes of tempi and delicate tenor parts achieved with ease, the final phrase a crescendoed climax; `Go, song of mine' impeccably tuned and phrased.
Judith Bingham's The Drowned Lovers with dramatic soloist Lorna Youngs (mezzo-soprano), was intriguingly intermingled with the words and music of Stanford's The Bluebird, in a passionate interpretation.
Most compelling was soprano Harriet Fraser in Aaron Copland's In The Beginning, where she proclaimed the Biblical narrative, which was amplified by the chorus (often singing in different keys from the soloist).
Marahi by Jonathan Harvey was a complex ritual hymn of praise to the Virgin Mary and the Buddhist Goddess Varahi, involving many vocal techniques (such as animal sounds and shouted interjections). Also included was Anthony Payne's Break, break, break.
For the concluding item we heard more Bach: Singet dem Herrn written for double choir: runs tripped off tongues and every polyphonic strand was heard clearly, singers taking obvious pleasure in their music-making.
Composers Judith Bingham, Jonathan Harvey and Anthony Payne were present to hear excellent renderings of their works.
hree Choirs Unknown: Unknown (25/08/2000) Thursday morning's cathedral concert had The Joyful Company of Singers directed by their founder conductor, Peter Broadbent. They are without any doubt one of this country's premier a cappella choirs as this totally unaccompanied concert demonstrated with items by J S Bach, Elgar and Harvey. Composers Judith Bingham and Anthony Payne were both present to hear their works; the former's reworking of Stanford's The Bluebird under the title The Drowned Lovers and Payne's Break, break, break. With Aaron Copland's In the Beginning the singers gave a meticulous demonstration of their art form.
 ick Whittington and his Cat Hilary Finch: The Times (30/06/2000) WHITTINGTON has finally turned again. Offenbach's lost operetta, Dick Whittington and his Cat, has returned in glory to the City of London where it was honoured with a concert performance in the Mansion House in the presence of the Lord Mayor of London himself.
The story is really quite a pantomime. Whittington was the hot ticket of the 1874-75 season in London. A commission from a Regent Street publisher cleared Offenbach of debt, and when his only English operetta opened at the Alhambra it ran and ran. Until Gilbert and Sullivan came along. Trial by Jury opened in 1875 and Whittington and his Cat vanished without trace.
A single published score of the lost work was recently discovered by chance in a Paris bookshop and passed to the Parisian publisher Mario Bois, who was contacted by the conductor Cem Mansur when he was looking for an Offenbach piece for the City of London Festival. Judiciously cut (much of the ballet music is gone) and tweaked into narrative shape, the piece began life again with Mansur conducting the City of London Sinfonia and the Joyful Company of Singers.
The story is, alas, stronger than the score. Apart from the central act, this is tired and often tedious Offenbach. Even the Overture doesn't quite seem to believe in its power to raise the curtain. No sooner have we been introduced to Whittington (Sally Bruce-Payne), his master, Fitzwarren (Russell Smythe), and his daughter, the lovely Alice (Constance Hauman), than we are frustratingly side-tracked by Offenbach's spirited nod to the Auld Alliance with the introduction of MacPibroch (Kevin West), Dorothy the Cook (Nerys Jones) and The Bell Ringer of Bow (West with another fancy hat on). They form the ship's company and between them provide some of the most excruciatingly vacuous serenading, ding-donging and culinary music ever written.
As the acoustic of the Egyptian Room of the Mansion House totally swallowed up most of the words (and a good part of Peter Merry's orchestration), one could only be thankful for the presence of John Suchet to tell us the story. He had written his own narration, based on the original English text, and at times it was difficult to disentangle the action from the plethora of city, naval and political in-jokes which peppered it.
And thank goodness, too, for the extraordinary dedication of the players and singers, and the energetic joie de vivre of the cast. Bruce-Payne's mezzo-soprano Whittington was particularly beguiling in her monotone monologue as she responded to the ghostly call of her destiny, high up on Highgate Hill. And Hauman gave her soubrette all to distract Whittington as both Alice and Princess Hirvaia.
 arland for Linda Richard S Ginell: Los Angeles Times (21/05/2000) There is astonishing variety in the musical languages of the composers…. All (the compositions) receive first-class performances from the smooth-as-silk Joyful Company of Singers.
t. Matthew Passion Geoffrey Norris: The Daily Telegraph (24/04/2000) ……this performance of the St. Matthew Passion by the City of London Sinfonia under Nicholas Kraemer found a judicious balance between the music’s reflective and narrative elements.
The opening chorus “Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen”, instantly identified Bach’s skill at establishing a contemplative mood, and at the same time revealed Kraemer’s thoughtful way of interpreting it. The CLS does not use period instruments, but there was an unaffected lightness, simplicity and sincerity to the flowing lines of Bach’s orchestral writing.
Equally, the choral singing was of the most lucidly expressive kind. Two halves of the Joyful Company of Singers were placed on either side of the platform, so that there was clear antiphonal definition between one group’s quiet exhortations to mourn and the sharp interrogative interjections – “Whom?”, “How?”, “What?” of the other.
The rich choral fabric was enhanced by the young voices of the Finchley Children’ Music Group, standing at the back of the stage and intoning the chorale melody, “O Lamm Gottes”, that is woven into the texture…………..
Kraemer drew subtle instrumental shading from the orchestra, adding refinement to a performance that was entirely appropriate for the meditative solemnity of Good Friday.
Tender Land Rodney Milnes: The Times (03/04/2000) AARON COPLAND'S ballet scores - Billy the Kid, Rodeo and Appalachian Spring - are justly popular in both the theatre and the concert hall. His only full-scale opera, originally commissioned for television with funding from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein but premiered by New York City Opera in 1954, is less familiar; it pops up every now and then, and even after a performance as persuasive and enjoyable as the City of London Sinfonia's to launch their Copland- Stravinsky mini-series, you can see why it is then "rested" for a while. It's written straight from the heart, and you desperately want it to succeed, to be better than it is.
It tells of a Midwest farming family at harvest time during the 1930s Depression. Laurie, the elder daughter, is to graduate from high school the next day, the first of her family to do so. Two drifters appear and are given casual work, but are they the pair also being sought for molesting young girls in the neighbourhood? No, as it anticlimactically turns out. Laurie and the tenor drifter fall in love at her pre-graduation party and decide to run away together. The baritone drifter rightly warns his mate that it will never work and they leave, and Laurie is left standing at the porch. She decides to leave home anyway.
All this is told in a gentle, conservative idiom, traditionally laid-out in aria, recitative and snatches of voiceover. It sounds a bit like heavily tranquillised Vaughan Williams, and so all-American-wholesome as to make apple pie seem like a minefield of botulism. But the tunes are attractive, the scoring lushly romantic, with only the occasional muted brass flourish or sul ponticello rasp to give a hint of drama and conflict - not quite enough to suggest the worm in the bud of this American Dream. What is lacking is the big decision-making aria for Laurie, who just sort of leaves.
Thursday's concert performance made a strong case for the work. Richard Hickox plainly loves the music, just as he loves Vaughan Williams, and his enthusiasm occasionally led to the CLS overwhelming the singers. But they played beautifully. The American soprano Laura Claycomb was pure-toned as Laurie, singing with as much passion as the music allows. Richard Coxon made the tenor drifter romantic and believable, and Roderick Williams was incisively flippant as his hard-bitten mate. Catherine Pierard did what she could as Laurie's mother, who is undercharacterised by the music. The Joyful Company of Singers fully lived up to their name in the Rodeo-style party music. It was a performance as heartfelt as the music, but Tender Land still doesn't quite come off.
ocal first for McCartney tribute Rachel Jones: Basingstoke Gazette (31/03/2000) ONE of the first concert hall tributes to Linda McCartney will be held in Basingstoke. The Anvil will host A Garland for Linda - a concert organised by the Garland Appeal, which was set up after the wife of former Beatle Paul McCartney died of breast cancer.
A Garland for Linda has been premiered and performed in religious venues but The Anvil is among the first three concert halls to kick off what will become a worldwide event, taking in settings as far-ranging as New York and the Pyramids in Egypt. The evening has been billed as one in which the whole community can take "a common stand against cancer" and will raise money for The ARK - a medical education centre due to be built at North Hampshire Hospital - and breast cancer charity Breakthrough.
The first half of the concert will feature renowned choir The Joyful Company of Singers joining members from the City of London Sinfonia to perform variations of McCartney-penned songs, including Yesterday, Let It Be and Penny Lane. The second half will be more reflective, featuring a series of pieces specially composed for the event by top musicians including Sir Paul McCartney.
Other composers who have contributed include J ohn Tavener, Judith Bingham, John Rutter, David Matthews, Roxanna Panufnik, Michael Berkeley, Giles Swayne and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett. The composers have worked within a literary framework but each of them have presented their own ideas and views on the themes of healing, hope and the power of music to help those who are suffering from ill health.
These pieces will also be performed by the Joyful Company of Singers who will only be accompanied by flute and cello. Dr John TeaIl, a retired GP who has been helping to arrange the concert by collaborating with The Anvil and the Garland Appeal, said: "This arrangement sounds a little obscure but I can assure people that it isn't. I have seen it performed and the minimal accompaniment is entirely appropriate and extremely effective. The choir are one of the most outstanding in the country and they have done the recording for this." The CD of the works has already been a hit in the classical charts and is widely available.
The concert is aimed at everyone and has been designed to be accessible for people of all ages, from all walks of life. Dr Teall said: "When I saw the concert in St Andrews, there were three young girls and a fellow sitting behind me and I couldn't help noticing how quiet they were. They didn't go to sleep and they weren't playing their Nintendos so I presumed they must be enjoying the music. When the piece ended, one of the girls said 'that was really cool.' I gather that is the highest form of praise you can receive from a teenager so I think this concert is attractive to the very young, very old and all those in between. It is extremely accessible but it is obviously a very intense thing too.'
Top Basingstoke cancer surgeon Myrddin Rees said he had invited Sir Paul McCartney to see the Basingstoke concert. "He said he would love to be there and he really did look like he meant it. He started looking in his diary but at that point was whisked away. I think he was pretty chuffed to be asked but he is a very busy man, so obviously we don't know what will happen."
The event on June 9 will also see a local person awarded the Garland Cancer Carer Award - a new award for anyone who has been outstanding in looking after someone suffering from cancer. The evening will be hosted by television gardener Alan Titchmarsh who does a lot of work with the Wessex Cancer Trust. The Garland Cancer Carer Award will go to somebody nominated by members of the public. Nomination forms are available from The ARK office on 01256 313190.
The concert will begin at 7.45pm and tickets are available from The Anvil box office on 01256 844244.
Garland for Linda Warwick Thompson: Amazon.co.uk (01/03/2000) This album is designed as a tribute to the life and memory of Linda McCartney (who died of breast cancer in 1998) and includes the work of nine contemporary British composers. Portmanteau albums such as these always raise the question of stylistic unity, but the composers have actually mostly responded to the theme of illness, suffering and hope in very similar ways: the tone of the whole album is one of calm reflection, punctuated by moments of visionary ecstasy. Unity is also achieved by the awe-inspiring singing of the Joyful Company of Singers who produce a cool cathedral-type sound which gets red-blooded at exactly the right moments. There are some extraordinary moments: Judith Bingham's Debussy-esque multi-layered soundscape is one, as is Giles Swayne's setting of the 10th-century poem "The Swan's Lament" with contributions from the flute and cello. Thankfully, the percentage of beautiful, imaginative or interesting music is high, even if it's not all at the level of the two pieces mentioned above. Fans of John Tavener or Arvo Pärt will certainly find much to enjoy. A percentage of the proceeds go to The Garland Appeal, which supports cancer research and British music.
Garland for Linda Rob Cowan: Gramophone Magazine (01/03/2000) A powerfully atmospheric commemoration of a much-loved celebrity – imaginatively chosen, beautifully performed and recorded.
Musical commemorations tend to be well-meaning, formal and forgettable, but ‘a Garland for Linda’ is a particularly lovely sequence that sidesteps hand-wringing cliché in favour of relative simplicity. Linda McCartney, wife of Sir Paul, made her mark on many lives. She was an accomplished artist (musical and photographic), a pioneer of vegetarian health foods and, by all accounts, a fairly special human being. Most readers will already know that she succumbed to breast cancer and it is heartening to learn that at least 25 per cent of this CD’s dealer price will help fund the ongoing battle against what is surely one of humanity’s worst health scourges. And, believe me, you won’t regret the investment on musical grounds.
The programme opens to Vaughan Williams’s Silence and Music, a sullen piece, ethereal and weathered (note how the four winds ‘in their litanies…weep and cry’) whereas Sir John Tavener’s chant-like Prayer for the Healing of the Sick calls for exemplary breath control from the excellent Joyful Company of Singers. Judith Bingham puts Shostakovich and Rachmaninov among her favourite composers. Both have a stake in her austere Water Lilies, a sort of choral tone-poem, replete with dense though never over-crowded harmonies. A solo flute (Philippa Davies) plays winged messenger in John Rutter’s occasionally Ravelian Musica Dei donum, while David Matthews favours a more jagged, even improvisatory style for The Doorway of the Dawn.
Sir Paul McCartney’s own Nova opens with a touching invocation to God, rather like a wounded child calling across open fields, then chirps up with the idea that God resides in song, rebirth , nature and snow. For me, it’s one of his best solo works since The Beatles and Wings. There’s a noticeably Delian aura to Roxanna Panufnik’s I Dream’d and Michael Berkeley’s Farewell, both attractive pieces. Giles Swayne claims the biggest part of the action with his highly dramatic The Flight of the Swan (cellist Robert Cohen and flautist Philippa Davies offer intense instrumental support) – animated reportage of trials overcome – and the programme ends with a brief but warming Good-Night by Sir Richard Rodney Bennett.
‘a Garland for Linda’ is a largely tranquil and edifying memorial, superbly sung, beautifully recorded and well annotated by the chairman of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, Stephen Connock. We would all do well to help fund its success.
joyous evening in good company Margaret Probyn: Bucks Free Press (20/02/2000) On Saturday The Joyful Company of Singers sang to the Beaconsfield Music Society and it was a joyous occasion – the ambience was pleasant and the choice of music a delight.
Peter Broadbent, their conductor, introduced each item with his witty and accessible commentary……. The Joyful Company of Singers are, amazingly, all amateur singers, which belies the professional expertise of their electrifying performance.
 ld Favourites bring joy of Christmas Michael Drake: Eastern Daily Press (06/12/1999) A combination of musical precision, subtleties and adaptability makes this ensemble a favourite with Norfolk audiences and the singers came again on Saturday evening to “wassail over the town”.
The joyous singing faced a worrying first chord but from then on all was faultless and beautifully controlled with the centrepiece Poulenc’s four Christmas Motets of vocal impressionism with contrasting surges of darker, intense colouring. Immaculate diction was a continuous feature, in particular in Richard Rodney Bennett’s Puer Nobis. The choir’s other great asset is its ability to assimilate the music’s character, shown especially in the Russian César Cui’s Magnificat and Villa-Lobos’ Praesepe. Ant to finish, more enterprise and no little fun in The Twelve Days of Christmas.
 oulenc CD Robert Maycoc: BBC Music Magazine (01/12/1999) The catalogue of Poulenc’s choral music on disc is distinguished, and no wonder - preparing performances is a labour of love, the former as much as the latter. Once you fall for the music you have to face its virtuosic demands. Quite often in concerts the strain shows, in over-emphasis, shrillness and forced tone.
In the studio, with repeated takes available, fulfilment beckons. The Joyful Company delivers lovely sounds, from a full but unstrained fortissimo to the astonishing quiet chord before the last lines of ‘Tous les droits’, fourth of the Sept Chansons. Fluid legato, subtle vibrato, persuasive rubato, the singers are on top of it all, except sometimes total clarity of enunciation - but then most of us can read. Where it matters, as with the surging verbal torrent of ‘Liberté’ in Figure Humaine, they deliver. This intense wartime cantata, hardest of all to sing, is done with such assurance, that it would sound almost relaxed if the momentum were not so urgent.
The collection is thoughtfully ordered, sacred and secular alternating, and sensitive to sequence - the soothing Francis of Assisi prayers follow Figure Humaine - within an acoustic just resonant enough (St.Silas, Kentish Town, London).
Garland for Linda Jeannine Alton: The Oxford Times (26/11/1999) “Music and silence: how I detest them both”, said C S Lewis’ young devil Screwtape, reminding us by contrast of the powers of harmony and meditation to uplift mankind. Silence and Music, a song by Vaughan Williams to words by his wife Ursula, introduced this Gala Concert, in the Oxford Contemporary Music series. The choir was the Joyful Company of Singers, under Peter Broadbent. This excellent London-based group has a wide repertoire. Saturday’s concert at St. Andrew’s Church, however, was special, built around A Garland for Linda, a musical tribute to Linda McCartney. The music was all 20th-century English, moving rather than challenging but evoking a genuine sympathetic response.
Performances of Vaughan Williams and Tavener showed the choir’s technical mastery of seemingly endless long-drawn notes and melismas, of diminuendo and crescendo and the range of vocal resources. Their version of Full fathom five with its bells, surges and ‘strange’ changes was magical. Peter Broadbent had made a clever arrangement of four McCartney songs culminating in the warmth of Good day sunshine.
A Garland for Linda gathers music by nine British composers. Within the general theme of healing and hope, the treatment reflects the composers’ temperament. Some, like Tavener, John Rutter and Rodney Bennett, use existing prayers or poems. Others compose new texts. Judith Bingham’s complex Water Lilies combines soloists with multi-layered choral voices; Michael Berkeley repeats two falling notes in his touching Farewell; McCartney’s Nova answers his “God where are you?” with “I am here”. Roxanna Panufnik sets verses from In Memoriam using tenor and soprano soloists. Giles Swayne’s ambitious Flight of the Swan adds to the intricate vocal parts a cello accompaniment (Naomi Bull-Masterson) and a difficult solo for the tongue-twistingly “flawless flautist” Philippa Davies.
ongs of Praise fit for Angels Michael Drake: Eastern Daily Press (16/10/1999) "……… The Joyful Company then took centre stage. Conducted by Peter Broadbent, they are the forefront of chamber choirs and their performance of Jonathan Harvey’s older Angels was sung with sufficient mysterious projection, clouded by the humming of half the choir, to give it an ethereal feeling.
Brilliantly performed was Harvey’s new and vocally testing Marahi, but it was David Bedford’s festival commission, The Grace of Love, that made a greater impact on me with beautiful legato singing.
The whole programme from the sensitively sung Stabat Mater of Palestrina through de Vivanco’s clever vocal references to the psalmists instruments in Cantate Dominum and the glorious and exultant climax of Palestrina’s Surge, Illuminare Jerusalem, full of confidence, subtlety and power, was one of praise and emerging light. Joyful indeed."
oulenc CD Nicholas Rast: The Daily Telegraph (09/10/1999) "the Joyful Company’s ardent, sensitively blended performances....."
"their sure dramatic sense in Figure Humaine culminates triumphantly in the final piece’s rousing cry — “Liberté”."
"with subtly shaded accounts of the Quatre Petites Prières de Saint François d’Asisse and Quatre Motets pour le temps de Noël."
 hat says Hussein? Vogue Daily (29/09/1998) The latest collection from fashion philosopher Hussein Chalayan may not have been given the consideration it deserved. Tagged 'Geotropics', the collection was designed to plot the changes in national identity and dress, through distance and time, along the Silk Road. But, by the time Chalayan sent out his first models onto the white-washed square catwalk at 10.00pm (one and a half hours late), the audience was feeling none too contemplative. Those guests forced to sit cross-legged on the floor like children began to act like children, humming along with the Joyful Company of Singers, a 30-strong choir of men and women in pathologists' paper suits honking out vowels like Professor Higgins' brassy phonographs. They hummed through his parade of smack-lip simple slate grey skirt suits. They hummed through the black linen funnel-neck jackets with three-quarter sleeves and built-in headboards, the tabards with front fins tacked like Judo suits, and the white gauze shift dresses with square flat-packed ruffles. As the show closed on Audrey wearing a mint green moulded plastic dress, bolted at the seams, a great cheer rose from the mob. But, whether he was deep in thought or just sulking, Chalayan wouldn’t be wooed out for a bow and an alternative cry soon went up: "Follow Suzy" one buyer cried and the fatigue-crazed mob charged from their tiered seats into the one narrow aisle to the exit, with The Tribune's Suzy Menkes at its head.
orms of Emptiness Martin Anderson: The Independent (21/08/1998) The most consistently satisfying performances were given by Peter Broadbent’s Joyful Company of Singers....... there were some unqualified successes. The Joyful Company excelled themselves in Jonathan Harvey’s Forms of Emptiness.
orms of Emptiness Richard Morrison: The Times (17/08/1998) Top dogs in my book were the Joyful Company of Singers for a stunning performance of Jonathan Harvey’s ecstatic three-choir work, Forms of Emptiness.
 VW & Co. Roderic Dunnett: Church Times (06/03/1998) RVW's exquisite 1940 Bunyan setting "Valiant for Truth", formed part of Vaughan Williams & Company, an imaginative concert series mounted this month at St. John's Smith Square by the Joyful Company of Singers.
.. imaginative word painting proved the key to the evening's success. It was seen at its best in Anthony Milner's "The
Harrowing of Hell", whose impassioned contrasts .. confirm it to be an audacious classic of post-war choral writing.
(there was)... a beautifully sustained, idiomatic performance of (RVW'S) Mass in G Minor; the hushed, almost disembodied moment where the Gloria recalls the elegiac trumpet solo of the Third Symphony was a high point of the whole evening.
 aughan Williams celebrated in style Laurence Hughes: The Independent (16/02/1998) To mark the 40th anniversary of the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams, the Joyful Company of Singers .. have had the marvellous idea of putting on a three part festival, featuring the music of the redoubtable RVW himself plus that of younger British composers whose work in some way follows on from his.
Proceedings were launched with ... 'Toward the Unknown Region'; although written for larger forces, this fairly small choir and orchestra under Peter Broadbent brought a fervour to the music that made it highly satisfying in effect. Anthony Milner's Roman Spring suffered slightly in contrast with its relatively astringent harmonies and freely chromatic melodic line. The Joyful Company dealt convincingly with some tricky vocal writing, and soloists Paula O'Sullivan and Eugene Ginty put a lot into their songs of love and death.
The bassoon concerto "Catalonia" by the late Paul Reade was given its première by Laurence Perkins. (the concerto)..demonstrated a strong sense of atmosphere and colour..
Vaughan Williams' Oxford Elegy, a haunting and poignant work, was given a most moving rendition, with Gabriel Woolf's speaking voice superbly audible... (it) contains moments of ravishing beauty.. His rollicking "Benedicite" of 1929, with colourful contributions from Paula O'Sullivan and solo flute (William Bennett) brought the programme to a rousing conclusion. More please.
rainger, Works for Chorus & Orchestra 2 Roz Kaveney: Amazon Website (01/11/1997) This second slice of Grainger's large output for chorus and orchestra starts with a set of his Kipling settings--the regrettably jingoistic, but infectiously jaunty "The Widow's Party" and the hymnlike lament "We have fed our sea", in which the brass comes in to make the chorus "If blood be the price of admiralty/ Lord God we have paid in full", almost unbearable. Two a capella settings, "The Running of Shirland" and "Tiger, Tiger", are given in their attractive alternative versions for string quintet. The purely orchestral items include Colleen Dhas, Grainger's first folk-based piece for orchestra alone, based on a lament for the princess whose beauty and adultery caused the invasion of Ireland by the British. The version of "Colonial Song"' here contrasts with the lusher version on Volume One (CHAN 9493), using wind solos followed by a tenor and mezzo vocalist in the big tune instead of massed strings--Padmore and Stephen bring out the music's passionate charm, particularly in the delicate extended dying fall that follows the brassy climax. Stephen Varcoe is at his most authoritative in the Scott ballad "Lord Maxwell's Goodnight". Hickox, his orchestra and his choir reach the same high levels as throughout this series.
rench Tour Pierre Moulinier: Le Monde (01/01/1997) "On stage, the green handkerchief the conductor wears with his dinner suit is already a sign: a concert is not a ceremony, but a pleasurable event. "Joyful" it tells us. The thirty singers are concentrated without being tense. Broadbent coaxes them, they give. The relationship is based on dialogue, not domination. The programme demonstrated the unity and musical intelligence of this ensemble. (In Westerlings by Peter Maxwell Davies) the English choir knew how to bring out the sonorous depths and the diffused light in this impressionistic voyage in the North Sea ...The Joyful Company was most at home in How could the soul not take flight, a recent work by Jonathan Harvey (1996) ...Whispers, speech, whistles, almost tonal melodies create an intense and lively landscape, until the final apotheosis, which sounded, in the enthusiastic élan of the Joyful, like a hymn to Joy."
 ing's Lynn Festival David Young: The Lynn News and Advertiser (01/01/1997) "There was a good congregation to welcome conductor Peter Broadbent and his immensely talented choir...the atmosphere created by thrilling and harmonious sounds soaring to the rafters was possibly unique in both the musical and spiritual annals of the historic chapel with voices at times swelling to fill the whole building and then dying away to perfect silence, a tribute to Broadbent's masterly control of some 30 polished singers."
aure Requiem: Barbican Geoffrey Norris: The Daily Telegraph (01/11/1995) "This is music with polish and suavity, qualities characteristic of this choir : it has made it's mark in the Russian repertory above all, but in this French programme it was no less engaging ...Broadbent and his forces judged the impact they should make to a nicety: discipline and enthusiasm coalesced artistically."
amilleri CD Marc Rochester: Gramophone (01/01/1995) "...Peter Broadbent's remarkably versatile Joyful Company of Singers ...these are totally assured, stimulating performances..."
 arvey CD Review Arnold Whitall: Gramophone (01/01/1995) "The Joyful Company of Singers ...have the flexibility of tone as well as the strength of sonority to project all facets of this often challenging music. The recordings are exceptionally atmospheric and the disc as a whole can be warmly recommended."
arvey CD Review Paul Riley: Classic CD (01/01/1995) "Peter Broadbent's direction secures that mixture of mystery, awe and ecstasy which is at the heart of Harvey's response to his texts, and the choir is sensitive to contour and harmonic nuance ...warmly recommendable."
usiques-en-Scene, Lyon Renaud Marchart: Le Monde (01/01/1995) "It was amazing to learn that the thirty-two singers were amateur ...the singers attack with perfect homogeneity and cohesion. One can imagine few French professional choirs who could rival them."
panish Arts Festival Hilary Finch: The Times (01/01/1994) "They sing Renaissance music with a direct, full-hearted and full throated sense of, well, joy ...every line was clear and supple, the balance just, the phrasing live. This was music, bright with the rich, full vocal colours it deserved."
wansea International Festival Alan Hoddinott (01/01/1994) "I still have the sound of your marvellous choir in my mind - a concert to be appreciated for its wonderful clarity and beauty of expression. I was most touched by your performance of Shakespeare Songs which had everything a composer could hope for - warmest thanks and gratitude to you all !"
olyfolies de Falaise Les Nouvelles de Falaise (01/01/1993) "Peter Broadbent conducts with much precision, but also with flexibility and conviction. The interpretation was of the highest quality ...with very beautiful phrasing and perfect musicality."
olyfolies de Falaise Geoffrey Cruickshank: Musical Opinion (01/01/1993) "...this choir is a truly admirable body, well-balanced, careful of diction and unanimous in attack."
 lgar Choral Festival Sir David Willcocks (01/01/1992) "This was really distinguished singing - imaginative in response to the text with very carefully graded dynamics from ppp to ff - an emotional performance with lovely chording and intonationàA lovely rich sound attained by very careful balance."
he Joyful Company is fresh... Andrew Porter, The Observer (01/01/1992) "The Joyful Company is fresh, alert and well-tuned"
alcolm Williamson 60th Birthday Concert Reviewer - Malcolm Williamson CBE (01/01/1991) "You gave me as fine a set of realisations of my music as I can ever hope to hear. You obviously know the counterpoint of the arms, hands and (come to that) brain, heart and lungs. It's also a matter of honouring with a challenge the human and adult qualities of your artists. It's your human approach (and of course a very fine ear) that makes them generate a magic in community that an egocentric bullyboy conductor could not produce."
urcell Room Richard Morrison: The Times (01/01/1990) "...in blend, intonation and expression, it represents all that is good about our choral tradition. ..the programme include Britten's coy, clever Choral Dances from his Coronation opera Gloriana and Malcolm Williamson's brilliantly quirky choruses from his 1964 chamber opera English Eccentrics, as well as sonorous choral pieces by Bliss, Tippett, Finzi and more recent composers. This is music that should occupy the same place in the British Choral repertory as Kodaly's and Bartok's does in the Hungarian - but its complexity and harmonic astringency count against it. To hear it performed so securely and with such obvious relish was a treat."
urcell Room Anthony Payne: The Independent (01/01/1990) "The performance of the combined Joyful Company of Singers under Peter Broadbent's direction was passionately sustained throughout, and the Morley College Chamber Orchestra made up for what they occasionally lacked in finesse with their sheer energy and commitment."
ebut Concert Michael White: The Independent (01/01/1988) "...the standard of musicianship in its ranks is high, motivated by strong but sensitive direction from Peter Broadbent, the conductor, and a real sense of conviction - a conspicuously serious intent..."
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