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

Colchester Chamber Choir, one of the most acclaimed small choirs in East Anglia, returns to St. John the Baptist’s Catholic Cathedral in Norwich with a candlelit performance of Rachmaninov's powerfully evocative Vespers, or All-night vigil. The choir performed the work to a sell-out audience in Coggeshall earlier this year.

Musical director Roderick Earle says: ‘Written in 1915, Rachmaninov’s Vespers was one of the last major musical works to emerge from Imperial Russia before the Revolution. The music is a complete wonder! Rachmaninov weaves an amazing tapestry of sound which offers not only traditional orthodox chant but carries the listener into a soundscape of shimmering bells and imagined angel choirs. The music propels one from moments of hushed introspection to spellbinding climaxes of ecstatic joy. I can’t wait to launch this magnificent work in the stunning acoustic of St John’s cathedral.’