Barely a week to go before we head to North Northumberland for a busy Bank Holiday weekend of singing – that includes not just four public performances but also working with school students and pupils in Alnwick from the Duchess’s Community High School (DCHS) and St Michael’s and Swansfield Park Primary Schools.

To kick off, a small group of our singers will join the primary school children to sing familiar Northumbrian folksongs such as ‘Dance ti thy Daddy’, play traditional singing games and experience singing together in harmony. Wooler composer John Casken will also work with them to explore ways of improvising and composing with voices, focussing on his piece ‘Uncertain Sea’, a setting of words by Beadnell poet Katrina Porteous.

Gavin Johnston, Head of St Michael’s C of E Primary School, has said:

“We strongly encourage music-making by all our students here and we’re delighted to host this innovative project with JCS, John Casken, Swansfield Park Primary and our own St. Michael’s ceilidh band and instrumentalists to widen their singing horizons. This is a great opportunity to work with a leading choir – both for the children and the community as well.”

John Casken’s compositions feature in our two related but distinct evening concerts, exploring themes of the sea and life’s voyages, at Wooler on Saturday 4th May and Alnwick on Sunday 5th May.

The Alnwick programme includes works by Parry, Vaughan Williams, Tavener, MacMillan and Bingham as well as Northumbrian folksong arrangements, and was specially chosen to include works by British composers who are being studied by DCHS students for their public exams. The students will be able to join a rehearsal and put their questions to our choral director Peter Broadbent, and attend the concert which also features Katrina Porteous reading from her own works.

Jonathan Ridley, Head of Music at DCHS, has said:

“It is very rare for a performing group of this quality to adapt a concert programme to include works specifically for the benefit of school students. We are very grateful for this opportunity to experience live performance of music by composers they are studying, and look forward to it with enthusiasm”.

JCS is performing in Wooler on Saturday 4th May at Ad Gefrin Anglo-Saxon Museum and Whisky Distillery for a ‘taster concert’ at 2.15pm, with the main event at St Mary’s Church at 7.30pm to open the Wooler Arts Summer Concerts series.

On Sunday 5th May we sing another ‘taster’ at The Alnwick Garden at 1.45pm and then our main concert at St Paul’s Church, Alnwick at 7pm.

Everyone is welcome to our public performances – the half-hour afternoon ‘taster concerts’ are free to visitors to the attractions. Tickets for the evening concerts will available ‘on the door’ and are now on sale online – for full details and ticketing links, click on www.jcos.co.uk/performances