Pinner Parish Church Choir

Director & Organist - MARTIN SINGLETON

Pinner Parish Church Choir – around which Pinner Music Festival has grown – open our PMF concerts again this year. The Choir’s regular contributions to worship in Pinner and beyond (the photo, by Fiona Rich, from a visit to Llandaff Cathedral in 2019), as well as in concerts, has fostered the musical talents and skills of numerous young people over very many years, initially guided by Michael Turvey (who also founded Pinner Music Festival), and in recent years by Martin Singleton.

This year is the centenary of the death of Irish composer and teacher Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924). His assured compositional style, especially in choral works, is now being increasingly recognised, alongside a pervasive influence as teacher, notably at Royal College of Music. We shall hear his Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis settings (in A major & G major) and other anthems, as well as works by his pupils Bainton, Brewer, Dyson, Vaughan Williams & Wood. Church musician Stephen Brown & Martin will play Minuet & Morris Dance from Stanford’s Six Sketches Op. 155 for violin & piano. There will be two organ works by Stanford, and solos (and a duet) from younger church musicians, including pieces by Handel, Fauré, Copland and Scott Joplin.