Crawley concert celebrates 900 years of choral music by female composers

The London-based choral quartet aims to bring “sophisticated and accessible choir concerts to the city and beyond” – and they are delighted to be branching out into Crawley where their bass George Salmon is musical director of the Phoenix Choir of Crawley.

Joining George in Sonare are: Victoria Stilwell, soprano; Stella Bracegirdle, alto; and Toby Churchley, tenor (tickets on www.sonarechoir.com).

Victoria said: “We are all based in London but we're trying to spread things a little bit further afield and really it has been a bit of a baptism by fire. It's tricky because we're trying to do everything ourselves which is good in some ways because you get the first and last word on everything you do but everything you think is going to take five minutes takes half an hour!

“We formed in the spring of 2021.

"We met as choral scholars at a church in Hackney in October 2019. The choral scholarship was supposed to run for a year but it ran for two because of the circumstances and we formed as a group on the basis that coming out of the pandemic we thought things could actually be a bit of a bloodbath and that really we should be trying to make our own opportunities.

“We recorded an album in February this year. We did the highlights of our first tour and we're just trying to build on the momentum. We released the album to coincide with our spring tour in May and now we are doing our third tour in a year.

“We feel that we are making progress. We have met some lovely people in the audiences that have been really supportive to us and we just have to build on that. It is difficult to build the momentum when you're stopping and starting so we know we have to keep working and we do know that there's real audience out there for us.

“Everybody was starved of things during the pandemic when they were just watching and listening at home, and it has been so lovely to get back out there and see people in proper concerts. The big goal would be to do this full time. And very slowly we are heading in that direction.

“We're starting to do weddings and funerals and all those sorts of things so there is that side to the work as well but in the long term we would like the touring and recording full time.

“I think what is distinctive about us is that we like exploring things. That's the big thing about us. We like to do a variety of stuff. There are certain things that we do that are crowd-pleasers but we also like to give people little things as well that they might not know so much.”

The latest programme looks at 900 years of female composers: “We have been really keen to do this from the start but we want to do it at the right time and in the right way. And I think this is coming to the fore now. There are more and more female-based programmes around. We have a composer in our group, Stella and she has written one of the pieces for us.

“It is really exciting to do these rather more neglected composers. For the longest time it has been a very male-dominated industry and I don't really know why. I find it very tricky to say. There are a few composers like Clara Schumann, the wife of Robert Schumann, composers that are connected to bigger composers but they still are not being seen or heard as much as they should be and her music is just amazing.”

www.sonarechoir.com