KELLY Choral Society and Orchestra join Kelly College choirs to give the first public performance of a new Cantata 'The Faery Feast'.
These combined talents can be enjoyed at Tavistock Parish Church on Saturday evening, March 25 when the piece, written by Andrew Wilson, director of music at Kelly College, is premiered.
Andrew has based his music on the poetic works of William Browne, Tavistock's own Jacobean poet.
This major project was commissioned for the millennium by the town council and is dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke whose predecessor was a patron of the poet.
Born in Tavistock in 1591 Browne received his early schooling at the Grammar School. He then went to Oxford in 1613 and then on to the Inner Temple to study law. It was here that, homesick for Tavistock, he wrote the Faery Feast.
This Arcadian story features a love-sick Tamar Valley shepherd who stumbles upon a Faery Feast.
It is the poetic description of this woodland feast with its feasting and cavorting that form the backbone of this Cantata.
Research by Andrew Wilson entailed reading early volumes of Browne's poetry and collaboration with Inner Temple Archivists and the Earl of Pembroke.
'I'm very grateful to Tavistock Town Council for its commission and hope the composition and its performance will enhance Browne's reputation in his home town,' says Andrew.
'I would like to think it will enable him to take his rightful place alongside Sir Francis Drake as one of Tavistock's illustrious sons.'
There is to be a display of some of the works of William Browne — together with the work of some local artists — in the church on the day of the concert.