ON Saturday March 10 at 7.30pm in Tavistock Parish Church, the South West Chamber Choir will be giving its first major recital under the baton of its recently appointed conductor, Jason Smart. Supporting the major item in the programme, Michael Haydn's rarely performed Requiem for Archbishop Sigismund, will be three unaccompanied motets, a Bach organ solo played by the church's resident organist Dr Sean Sweeney, and Jesu, meine Freude, the much loved motet by J S Bach. The three unaccompanied motets are from the Renaissance on the theme of Christ's passion: Tomás Luis de Victoria: Vere languores nostros; Jacob Handl's Ecce quomodo moritur Justus and Ave verum corpus by William Byrd. The organ music is a Chorale Prelude Erbarm dich mein, O Herre Gott by J S Bach. Whilst Franz Joseph Haydn's music has always been highly regarded, that of his younger brother Michael is comparatively little known. Yet shortly after his death it was said of him: 'All connoisseurs of music know ... that as a composer of sacred music Michael Haydn ranks amongst the finest of any age or nations ... In this field he is fully his brother's equal; in fact ... he often surpasses him by far'. Jason Smart studied at the Royal College of Music, gaining a first prize for music theory and several diplomas, including the ARCO with the Sawyer Prize. For three years he was the Organ Scholar at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. Subsequently he held a number of organist's posts in Bristol, and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists in 1981. Sean Sweeney held his first organist's post at the age of eleven in Swansea. He graduated with an honours degree in music from the University of Wales and subsequently went on to achieve an MA from the University of Reading and a Doctorate from the University of Bath. Sean has performed in many concert venues, churches and cathedrals in this country and abroad. He has been director of music at Tavistock Parish Church since 2005. Formed 10 years ago, the South West Chamber choir has gained an increasingly wide-ranging repertoire of choral music. Much is challenging, some unaccompanied, and covers a span of some seven centuries, up to and including contemporary works by local composers. Tickets are available on the door, price £6.
