OWEN Davies' acclaimed Allegri Singers will be in fine voice this weekend performing at Cartmel Priory on Saturday (March 3, 7pm) and St Thomas's Church, Milnthorpe, on Sunday (4pm).
Under Owen's adept choral guidance, the highly regarded singers perform Palestrina's glorious Pope Marcellus Mass and anthems from the 16th to the 21st centuries. A wonderfully opulent work for six-part choir, the Mass was written in Rome in 1562, and has often been sung during Papal inauguration services. The work is often included in music courses as the prime example of a mass from the finest period in the history of church music.
Between the mass sections, Allegri perform a variety of works, with celebratory anthems by Gibbons and Sweelinck, and modern items by local composer David Collins and internationally renowned Morten Lauridsen. The singers conclude their programme with three glorious anthems from the Romantic period by Mendelssohn, Bruckner and Rheinberger.
Allegri draws singers from an area bounded by Windermere, Sedbergh, Lancaster and Ulverston. Formed in 2004, they meet for six weeks of intensive rehearsal for each programme, combining great masterpieces and lesser known works that are rarely performed.
There will be retiring collections at both venues.
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