30th Season
For immediate release, Monday 1 December 2014
Crouch End Festival Chorus celebrates Christmas with carols – old
favourites and one that’s brand new
Saturday 20th December 2014, 7.30pm | St Michael’s Church, Highgate
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PERFORMANCE AND BOOKING INFORMATION:
CHRISTMAS CAROLS AND SONGS
Including the WINNER of the 2014 CEFC Carol Competition: Chanticleer by
Richard James Harvey
Saturday 20th December 2014, 7.30pm, St Michael’s Church, Highgate, N6 6BJ
Tickets: £15 and £10
50% off: under 18s
20% off: CEFC Friends, Crouch End Card holders, students
CEFC Ticketline: 0844 736 5220
Email: [email protected]
Credit/debit card sales: www.ticketsource.co.uk/cefc (booking fee applies)
On the door: cash/cheque only
In support of The Brain Tumour Charity (www.thebraintumourcharity.org)
PERFORMERS
Crouch End Festival Chorus
David Temple - conductor
Peter Jaekel - organ and piano
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It’s been a bumper year for Crouch End Festival Chorus. To celebrate the choir’s 30th
anniversary, each concert in 2014 has included the first performance of a newly
commissioned work, and CEFC’s popular Christmas concert will be no exception.
The choir decided to hold its first ever Christmas carol competition to find a worthy addition
to the seasonal favourites we all know and love. The winning entry was Chanticleer by local
composer Richard James Harvey, who lives in Barnet. It will be performed for the first time
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on Saturday 20th December 2014 at St Michael’s Church in Highgate, north London in
CEFC’s annual Christmas concert, which this year supports The Brain Tumour Charity.
Chanticleer was chosen from a shortlist of seven by a panel of judges comprising CEFC’s
Music Director David Temple, music critic Michael White, and the choir’s Artistic Planning
Manager Genevieve Helsby and Engagements Manager Johnny Mindlin. The shortlisted
carols were sung by members of the choir for the judges at a specially organized session in
Pond Square Chapel, Highgate.
As conductor David Temple explains:
‘It seems fitting to finish a groundbreaking 30th anniversary season with another new piece,
and we were really pleased with the response to our competition. We had enough entries to
fill an entire concert. But one carol stood out for all of us. Chanticleer has a wonderfully
festive feel and will prove popular with singers and audiences alike. I feel that we have
uncovered a real gem!’
Fellow judge and music critic Michael White comments:
‘For me, Chanticleer stood out because it was a strong, impactful piece that functioned like a
carol should – albeit with contemporary edge – and stayed in my mind after I'd heard it.’
So it may be that 20th December 2014 heralds the birth of a new Christmas classic.
Alongside the first performance of Richard James Harvey’s Chanticleer, concert-goers will
be able to enjoy CEFC’s rendition of traditional carols and popular Christmas songs from
Once in Royal David’s City to Winter Wonderland. And from a choir renowned for both
passion and precision, interpretations of a cappella works by Morten Lauridsen and Sir John
Tavener are sure to move the audience with their power and beauty.
This year’s concert is in support of The Brain Tumour Charity, which funds research into
brain tumours, raises awareness, and offers help and information to those affected by this
challenging condition. There will be a collection for the charity at the concert.
For more information, please visit www.cefc.org.uk or call Liz Sich on 07956 612380;
[email protected]
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NOTES TO EDITORS

Crouch End Festival Chorus is one of the leading symphony choruses in the UK.
Under the musical direction of David Temple, CEFC promotes its own concerts and
collaborates with the finest orchestras, soloists, singers, composers, broadcasters
and recording companies.

Coming up next: Monteverdi’s Vespers at St John’s Smith Square on 7th February
2015 (www.sjss.org.uk)

Crouch End Festival Chorus collaborates frequently with the BBC Symphony
Orchestra and Chorus, notably in a highly praised performance of Britten’s War
Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall on Remembrance Sunday 2013. A regular
contributor to the BBC Proms, CEFC took part in two Prom concerts in the 2014
season: the new Sports Prom with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by
Rebecca Miller, and an all-Russian programme that included Rachmaninov’s choral
symphony The Bells, conducted by Edward Gardner with the BBC Symphony
Orchestra and Chorus.

The choir began its 30th anniversary year in January 2014 with the premiere of a
CEFC commission by film and TV composer and dramatist Murray Gold: when my
brother fell into the river… A second commission performed in March 2014 was Will
Todd’s Rage Against the Dying of the Light, a setting of Dylan Thomas’s poem Do
Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. In June 2014, CEFC sang an a cappella
programme at Southwark Cathedral and Waltham Abbey, featuring their third new
commission of the year, Bernard Hughes’ exquisite Salve Regina. And in October,
the choir performed a fourth commission, Malala by James McCarthy, inspired by the
story of Nobel Peace Prize-winner and campaigner Malala Yousafzai, which was well
received by critics and audience alike and proved a worthy follow-up to his 17 Days,
commissioned and first performed by CEFC in 2012.

CEFC regularly features on the BBC’s Doctor Who, including 2012’s Christmas
Special, and can be heard on the soundtrack of the supernatural thriller The
Awakening, featuring Dominic West and Rebecca Hall. CEFC also appeared at the
Southbank Centre’s Meltdown Festival with CEFC Patron Ray Davies in 2011, and in
2012 featured on Noel Gallagher’s hugely successful debut solo album – Noel
Gallagher's High Flying Birds – with CEFC singers taking part in his UK tour.

More recently, CEFC has performed in two sell-out concerts at the Hammersmith
Apollo with one of the world’s most successful film composers, Hans Zimmer (which
also featured a surprise performance by Pharrell Williams singing Happy), and sang
with tenor Andrea Bocelli in both London and Birmingham. In November 2014 CEFC
performed at the West End’s Dominion Theatre with rock band Procol Harum in a
concert recorded for BBC Radio 2’s Friday Night is Music Night.

Richard James Harvey was born and brought up in the West Country, where he
accompanied the local church choirs in their annual performances of Messiah and
Elijah. He received his musical education at the Royal Academy of Music in London,
studying organ with Alan Harverson and harmony with Dr Eric Thiman. While there
he was awarded the Margaret and Sydney Lovett Prize for church organ
accompaniment.
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
Besides his role as rehearsal pianist to the Finchley Choral Society and the St Albans
Choral Society, Richard is an organ recitalist, piano teacher and composer.

His musical Crosswords (written for St John’s United Reformed Church, where he
has been organist since 1977) was published by Stainer and Bell. In December 1996
he won first prize in Stanmore Choral Society’s Golden Jubilee Competition. His
winning composition was a setting of Siegfried Sassoon’s poem Everyone Sang,
which received its first performance in June 1997 and which Finchley Choral Society
performed in June 1998. In 1999 he was commissioned by Lyonsdown School, New
Barnet, to compose a musical The Snow Queen for the millennium year, which
received its first performance in June 2000.

In 2006 Finchley Choral Society commissioned a work Echo to be performed as part
of its Mozart 250th birthday concert. Written for soprano solo, SATB choir and string
orchestra it is a setting of a poem by Christina Rosetti. The première took place in
November 2006 and it has since been performed by St Albans Choral Society, who
commissioned Richard in 2009 to compose a carol suite This Endris Night for their
Christmas concert.

In 2011, Finchley Choral Society commissioned Richard to write a short a capella
piece On the beach at night (a setting of a Walt Whitman poem) with which to mark
his 25th year as their rehearsal accompanist.

In April 2012 his cantata The Bridge, for soprano and baritone soloists, choir and
chamber ensemble was performed as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations at St
John’s U.R.C. Barnet. In November 2013, St Alban’s Choral Society premièred of his
composition, Vespers for soprano and baritone soloists, choir and orchestra, which
had been commissioned by them.

For more information about CEFC, please visit: www.cefc.org.uk

For more information about The Brain Tumour Charity, visit
www.thebraintumourcharity.org
Press Contact:
Liz Sich|07956 612380| [email protected]
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