We are off to New York! Eccles Community Choir has been invited to join a Distinguished Concerts Singers International (DCINY, http://www.dciny.org) performance of Howard Goodall’s Requiem at Carnegie Hall New York on Sunday November 20th. The DCINY show presents UK composer Howard Goodall’s Eternal Light: A Requiem, led by Maestro Jonathan Griffith. An ensemble from the choir will be travelling to New York to join with 14 other participating ensembles; of which Eccles Community Choir is the only community choir invited to take part.
The Eternal Light Requiem brings modern relevance to the mass of the dead; renewing a structure established in mediaeval times. Howard Goodall has stripped down the old Latin texts to a few phrases in each movement, setting them alongside words from English poems from across the last 500 years.
This is the third international concert for the choir this year: the two earlier ones related to Town Twinning ( see earlier blog posts). Eccles may not be twinned with New York, but the trip in November has special links nonetheless. The amazing thing is that performing at the New York Carnegie concert hall which opened in 1891 (built by Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie 25.11.1835-11.08 1919) is a hugely relevant occasion for the Eccles Community Choir for two reasons. Firstly, until the size of the choir outgrew the venue, the choir regularly practiced in a room in Eccles Library – a building which was funded by the very same Andrew Carnegie (designed by Edward Pott), and opened on 19 October 1907. Secondly, Eccles Community choir supports well- being, highly relevant to the work of Andrew Carnegie which lives on – over 100 years later, the Carnegie UK Trust still works to seek improvement of the well-being of the community (http://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk ). Choir membership certainly brings with it some once-in-a lifetime opportunities!
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