Click here for full details of the concerts taking place in the next St Gauderic Music Festival.
Festival history
The purpose of the Festival is to gather a choir of English and French singers for a long weekend in the South of France during the August Bank Holiday weekend and put on concerts in and around St Gauderic and Mirepoix.
The first St Gauderic Music Festival was held in August 2007; a couple of concerts were promoted in the summer of 2008, and the second festival took place in August 2009. A third festival happened in August 2010, and the fourth in 2011. We are now planning a fifth in 2012. See the link below for details.
For 2007, the English singers mainly stayed in Auberge du Balestie, (www.auberge-du-balestie.com) although there was an overflow to other accommodation in the area. Dave and Sylvia at the Auberge provided a comfortable environment for the Festival, laid on delicious food, as well as the glorious views of the Pyrenees, the beautiful weather and the appealing swimming pool.
The main works for the concerts in 2007 were Faure’s Requiem and Elgar’s From the Bavarian Highlands. We also sang Faure’s Cantique de Jean Racine and a few other works More detail see link below.
Two concerts were promoted in 2008. The Goldberg Ensemble string sextet gave a truly inspiring concert on 25 August, and the Latour Festival Choir came on 25 July. More detail see link below.
For the Festival in August 2009, with the main works were Mozart’s Requiem and Handel’s Zadok the Priest. Further details are available on the link below.
In 2010 we tackled the Liebeslieder Waltzes by Brahms in a new arrangement for choir, four soloists, string orchestra and piano. We also performed Handel’s Messiah parts 2 and 3, and John Ireland’s anthem Greater Love hath No Man. Further details are shown on the link below.
The Festival in 2011 was our most ambitious yet. We gave over most of the Saturday concert to the orchestra, and under the direction of James Ross, gave splendid performances of Warlock’s Capriole suite, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and the Serenade for Strings Opus 6 by Josef Suk. The choir performed Mozart’s Ave verum and Purcell’s Rejoice in the Lord alway, with string accompaniment. On the Sunday the main pieces were Vivaldi’s Gloria and Puccini’s Messa di Gloria, choir, soloists and orchestra in Mirepoix Cathedral. We also promoted an organ recital in the same venue on Monday lunchtime by Jonathan Lilley. The Friday soiree musicals in Manses contained an eclectic mix of songs and arias from our young soloists, a dramatic extract from Mendelssohn’s Elijah and the Bach Double Violin concerto by the orchestra. More detail is shown below.