Colchester Chamber Choir - a candlelit performance of Rachmaninov's Vespers

Colchester Chamber Choir, one of the most acclaimed small choirs in East Anglia, will celebrate the start of its tenth anniversary year on 12th January 2019 with a very special candlelit performance of Rachmaninoff's powerfully evocative Vespers at St Peter ad Vincula church in Coggeshall. Written in 1915, this was one of the last major musical works to emerge from Imperial Russia before the Revolution and this very special atmosphere will be evoked with complimentary Russian culinary delicacies and other refreshments.

Musical director Roderick Earle says: ‘The Vespers is one of the most challenging works in the choral repertoire and a truly amazing piece of music.

Written just for voices, Rachmaninoff creates a magical world of sound so that one can actually hear not just the orthodox chant but a whole landscape filled with shimmering bells and imagined angels. He propels the music from moments of hushed introspection to spellbinding climaxes of ecstatic joy.”

The concert falls almost exactly nine years after the choir’s inaugural concert at St Leonard’s Church in Lexden, which was a huge success despite a heavy snowstorm! Since then they have performed a wide range of works all over East Anglia, including the cathedrals in Bury St Edmunds and Norwich.