Singers and orchestra players wanted for the Together Festival

Thursday, 19 October 2017

Choral singers and orchestral players – join us for a weekend of music making, culminating in a festival concert at our historic Great Hall. 

Music at Reading are introducing brand new termly festival weekends, where students, University staff and members of the local community gather for a fun weekend of music making, culminating in a themed festival concert. 

The first of these, the Together Festival, will take place on Saturday 28- Sunday 29 October.

The Together Festival promotes community music making at the University of Reading – it provides us with an opportunity to tap into the lively local choral and orchestral scene, bringing together the many musicians among our staff and student body with members of local community choirs and orchestras.

The sinfonia will be directed by Andrew Taylor, Musical Director of the Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra. Andrew brings his experience of running a successful and adventurous, project-led orchestra, and we are delighted to work with him on this project. 

The orchestral theme of the festival will be film scores, including playing professional film score suite of John Williams Star Wars. This is an orchestral player's dream – exciting, busy and challenging music ideal for an orchestral weekender. The suite is best suited to orchestra players of grade 7-8 or above, especially those who enjoy playing through challenging pieces.

Festival Voices will be singing choruses from Handel’s Messiah, and excerpts from Strauss’ Die Fledermaus. This mixed choir will suit singers who are used to singing from sheet music and who enjoy singing symphonic choral pieces. Festival Voices is directed by Rebecca Berkley, Artistic Director of Music at Reading. Rebecca is an experienced choral conductor, having worked locally with the Slough Philharmonic Society Chorus and Kennet Opera, and nationally as a tutor with Sing for Pleasure. 

Rehearsals will be built around musicianship training, focusing on aural skills and notation reading so that singers feel fully supported as they prepare for performance. Festival Voices will be joined by singers from other Music at Reading choirs Campus Voices and Academic Voices, and soloists from the University Chamber choir. 

After rehearsing over the weekend, the orchestra and choirs will join forces for the Together Festival concert, which will be held in London Road’s Great Hall on Sunday 29 October, 6.00pm. Tickets are £10, £6 for concessions – all are welcome. 

Full details and prices are available on the Together Festival page. For more information on Music at Reading, please visit www.reading.ac.uk/music.