suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 26/09/2026And it was a wonderful workshop with some enchanting music…amazing democratic conductor “don’t watch me all the time, look at each other.” Great advice, “look for melodic shapes,” in passages with incredibly long lines and “what does it make you feel ?” Thanks Patrick. 120
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 25/07/2026We found it delightful too. Such enchanting music and such interesting background information. Patrick led us in a calm and measured way that helped us forget the heat outside. 👏👏 121
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 05/06/2026What a fascinating programme, brilliantly played👏👏. The colours you brought out of that modest organ, housed in what feels like a venerable wooden barn (courtesy of George Cadbury), were amazing. Bravo! 121
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 29/03/2026It was a truly joyful concert, thanks @organistpaul.bsky.social 👏👏 021
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 01/12/2025Sounds an interesting prospect @organistpaul.bsky.social 010
Reposted by suepersopFran Wilson @crosseyedpianist.bsky.social · 01/12/2025📣🎶Calling choirs! Be part of the Royal School of Church Music’s centenary celebrations. Find out more here: crosseyedpianist.com/2025/12/01/s... #choralmusic #newmusic #centenarycrosseyedpianist.com‘Songs of the Spirit’: A major new choral work for choirsBe part of the Royal School of Church Music’s centenary celebrations – become a co-commissioning choir for a major new choral work by Thomas Hewitt Jones 141
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 11/11/2025Brilliant, but they ought to give you an honorary degree too for performing! 🎶🎶 010
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 04/10/2025Thought you might like this collage at University of Birmingham music building. Good luck with your book. However, I am going to unfollow you, because the sheer volume of your posts dominates my feed and I am more into classical music 🎶 120
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 24/08/2025Excellent interview! I can thoroughly recommend @leahbroad.bsky.social’s book so engagingly written. 021
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 29/07/2025I am reading it currently on google play. Amazing stories, beautifully written written👏👏 011
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 23/06/2025What a lovely review. We hope lots of people will come again when we sing it with #JoannaForbesLEstrange and a host of #ComeandSingers! 9th August. @sellyparksingers.co.uk for details. 000
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 14/06/2025Triumphant Birmingham premiere of #JoannaForbesL’Estrange’s reimagining of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons for choir. Virtuoso performance by Tom Howell on organ as the violin soloist. @organistpaul.bsky.social brought the best out of @sellyparksingers.co.uk with inspiring direction. Sell out audience too👏👏 022
Reposted by suepersopMike Galsworthy @mikegalsworthy.bsky.social · 13/05/2025“I woke up with a sense of dread…” — from an EU citizen in the UK on how Labour’s new rhetoric is shaking people’s sense of belonging. Powerful open letter. 👇eastangliabylines.co.ukLetter: We are not strangersLetter to the editor 33669286
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 05/04/2025We’re going next week! Can’t wait 😊. Meanwhile, 😮singing #BachBminorMass tonight at Lichfield Cathedral with #BirminghamBach and Sophie Bevan+ Roderick Williams😀😀😮😮 020
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 27/03/2025reprising the introduction, with words and sentiments from Ecclesiastes and a call for peace, Dona Nobis Pacem. After a magical pause, the audience responded to this amazing piece of music with a prolonged standing ovation. 010
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 27/03/2025A swingle style lyrical scat melody from sopranos and pizzicato raindrops from the other parts enchanted the audience and brought tears to the composer’s eyes. The final movement, set to words from Genesis served to summarise all four seasons and led neatly into Joanna’s postlude… 000
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 27/03/2025of the violin solo. Organist Gavin Roberts rose to the challenge in this and every movement brilliantly. Winter’s slow movement brought us cosy warmth with a moving tribute to the late Ward Swingle, Joanna’s mentor. 000
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 27/03/2025Whereas Vivaldi thinks of this as a hunt scene, Joanna’s setting of Psalm 150 transformed it into a hymn of praise on various musical instruments. Winter started with frost, portrayed by the choir singing icy staccato syllables from Vivaldi’s own Italian sonnet, against a virtuoso organ arrangement 100
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 27/03/2025Autumn began with a rousing harvest hymn, cleverly intertwined with an account of the creation story sung by the confident high sopranos in the choir. The following slow movement found Emily Brontë again musing on the fall of leaves in autumn, before the choir joyfully sang two psalm arrangements. 000
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 27/03/2025the opposite process to the usual setting of lyrics to original music. The third movement of summer was magical, with body percussion evoking the summer storm (and more laughter from the audience as they enjoyed the effect). 000
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 27/03/2025Summer also began in madrigal style with cuckoos, moonlight and the first hints at a thunderstorm. The first two movements benefit from the insertion of Emily Brontë’s haunting poem, Moonlight, Summer Moonlight. Joanna has been really clever in retro-fitting words into Vivaldi’s music… 100
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 27/03/2025impressive whistling to represent birdsong! Sopranos soared beautifully with the lark in the slow central movement before a vocal evocation of bagpipe drones from lower voices entertained the audience in a fa-la-la chorus inspired by Thomas Morley. 100
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 27/03/2025This calmly sets the scene in a baroque style, though I thought the organ introduction had a distinct echo of the In Paradisum from the requiem by Fauré (who also had an anniversary last year). Then spring saw the chorus confidently taking the soloistic violin part with some particularly… 100
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 27/03/2025After an introduction by the composer, outlining her motivation and the process of composing this intricate tribute to Vivaldi, we launched into the main piece. Joanna bookends the 12 movements taken from the Four Seasons with her own compositions to words from Ecclesiastes. 000
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 27/03/2025.. by Rebekah Abbott, whose flowing arm movements elicited passion, style and great diction from the singers. The first half of the programme consisted of other pieces written by Joanna and her husband Alexander L’Estrange, plus choral works which formed inspiration for some of Joanna’s libretto… 100
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 27/03/2025imaginative and exciting new work and we give its Birmingham premiere on 14 June. On this occasion, the choir was Luminosa Voices, an eighty-strong ensemble of confident singers, who have learned the piece in record time since scores were released in December 2024. They were brilliantly conducted 100
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 27/03/2025I went to London’s oldest (and most atmospheric) parish church, St Bartholomew the Great, on Saturday 22 March to hear the launch concert for Joanna Forbes L’Estrange’s reimagining of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. My choir, Selly Park Singers is one of 55 choirs worldwide to co-commission this… 610
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 23/03/2025@sellyparksingers.co.uk follow with a Birmingham premiere in June. 010
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 23/03/2025Very moving launch concert for #JoannaForbesL’Estrange a Season to Sing, reimagining #VivaldiFourSeasons. Luminosa Voices were on tremendous form at St Bart’s the Great in London. 👏👏 131
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 20/03/2025Congratulations to #joannaforbesl’estrange and friends for some lovely samples of A Season to Sing on #BBCradio3Intune this afternoon (between two 5 and 6pm GMT) including some impressive whistling! 021
Reposted by suepersopSelly Park Singers @sellyparksingers.co.uk · 19/03/2025There will be an opportunity in August to sing ‘A Season to Sing’ yourself, coached by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange at our Come & Sing event. Details: www.sellyparksingers.co.uk/come-and-sing/sellyparksingers.co.ukCome and Sing! – Selly Park Singers 134
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 26/02/2025I went to this recital in @oxfordsong.bsky.social and it was stunning. 111
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 19/02/2025@sellyparksingers.co.uk is one of the co-commissioning choirs for this work and we’ll be performing it in Birmingham UK on 14 June🎶👏👏. It is brilliant. 121
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 02/02/2025Virtuoso playing from @organistpaul.bsky.social If only I could sing stately trills like he plays them…😮 031
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 21/01/2025Definitely a lively atmosphere in choir at the moment with members new and old enjoying the variety of music from #joannaforbesl’estrange. 022
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 16/01/2025Fond memories of driving over Penn Common and past St Bart’s on my way to visit my Mum. Hope the organ comes back rejuvenated. 🎶 010
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 12/12/2024And this will be the first year I have missed it (apart from Covid cancellations) since 2005, when I first sang the glorious #HowellsCollReg Magnificat 🎶. Enjoy! 010
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 01/12/2024It was a brilliant concert, so joyful and full of alleluias🎵😀. Handbells added a special touch at the end. All led by the remarkable @organistpaul.bsky.social👏👏 042
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 24/11/2024Thank you for coming, David and Clementine. Lovely but realistic review of an unusual programme. 👏👏 110
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 23/11/2024Hope your concert went well. Feel exhilarated and exhausted after ours. #MartynRawles triumphed over the St Paul’s organ👏👏 000
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 23/11/2024Lovely mix of repertoire in @sellyparksingers.co.uk next week. Today an equally stimulating programme with #birminghambach: Ireland, Britten and Richard Rodney Bennett. 7pm at St Paul’s in the Jewellery Quarter 🎶🎶👏 020
Reposted by suepersopBernard Hughes @bernardhughes.bsky.social · 16/11/2024Now there are suddenly more #classicalmusic people around here, seems a good time to say that the podcast #ChoralChihuahua is well worth a listen - current ep about music for upper voices, and there’s a big back catalogue to explorepodcasts.apple.comUpper VoicesPodcast Episode · CHORAL CHIHUAHUA · 11/11/2024 · 58m 1174
Reposted by suepersopLeah Broad @leahbroad.bsky.social · 16/11/2024Right, made a starter pack for people doing cool stuff on gender in classical music, especially promoting work by women! Let me know if you'd like to be added if this is you!! go.bsky.app/5NNQiYY 3511931
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 12/11/2024I sing with Birmingham Bach Choir and @spsingers.bsky.social Concerts coming up on 23 and 30 November. Practising hard!🎵🎶🎵 120