Piano, vocals and top choir
JANUARY at Rochdale’s Weekly Music at Lunchtime kicked off another year of weekly lunchtime concerts at St Mary’s in the Baum with a bumper month of five Wednesdays.
January 3: More than Melody ladies’ choir, conducted by Jonathan Gibson and accompanied by Edward Rigg, brought seasonal favourites such as Winter Wonderland, mixed with perennials such as Bridge Over Troubled Water and Strauss’s Polka. They also sang the novelty item by Rossini, Duet for Two Cats – the cool cats being Alyson Brailsford and Janet Milner.
January 10: Soprano Suzanne Mather has been performing for Music at Lunchtime in Rochdale for more than 30 years in its various venues, singing from Music Hall to Opera and Oratorio.
Accompanied by Ruth Dixon, the former head of music at Oldham Hulme Grammar School, she sang songs and arrangements by Britten, arias by Gilbert and Sullivan, RimskyKorsakov and Dvorak and also from Kismet, topped off with songs by Milloker, Martin, Montague Phillips and Haydn Wood.
January 17: More songs from Tim Kennedy (tenor) who studied music at Cambridge and now leads a varied career as organist, pianist and singer and a staff accompanist at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM).
He demonstrated his ample skill as an interpreter of English song, plus Scarlatti, Faure, Schubert and Grieg. He was accompanied by John Gough, currently senior tutor in piano at the RNCM, who also contributed instrumental interludes.
January 24: After all this wonderful singing we then had some sumptuous chamber music from The Ryebank Trio - Isabel Williamson (cello), Duncan Reid (violin) and Jonathan Ellis (piano). Originally formed in 2003 by ex-RNCM postgraduates, and winners of the Best Small Ensemble award at the Buxton Festival Fringe, 2011, the Ryebank Trio relaunched in 2017 with a new cellist.
Their playing of trios by Brahms and Mendelssohn with superb vibrancy and assurance was worthy of the Bridgewater Hall.
January 31: The young Romanian pianist Greta-Nike Gasser presented a stunning programme of pieces by Janacek, Constantinescu, Negrea, Barber and Ginastera. Greta brought these rarely-played masterworks to life, all from memory, with intelligent and fluent introductions. Now in the second year of a master’s degree at the RNCM and becoming established as a teacher as well as a performer, she proved to be an exceptional pianist and communicator as she transported her audience.
Rochdale’s Weekly Music at Lunchtime concerts are held on Wednesdays, 12.30pm to 1.30pm, at St Mary’s in the Baum. Admission costs £4, refreshments available from 11.30am.