SATURDAY 29th May. The Roy Abrams Memorial Concert.
ICKNIELD ENSEMBLE. Granados, Frank, Dohnanyi, Dvořák
FRIDAY 18th June THIS IS MY THEATRE (Sussex). The Tempest
SUNDAY 11th July ASHLEY GROTE – Organ Recital. Bach, Purcell, Elgar, Mendelssohn
SATURDAY 24th July THE PANTALOONS THEATRE. Wind in the Willows
SATURDAY 25th Sept RACHEL FRYER, piano. Bach’s Goldberg Variations
THE MYNX SOUL BAND
– POSTPONED
1960s Memphis Soul Music
Saturday 25th April 2020, 7.30pm, St. Botolph’s Church, TRUNCH
2020 season opening – an evening of hand-clapping, foot-tapping, even dancing in the aisle! The hot 9-piece soul band will be playing 1960s Memphis Soul hits, with some Blues and Motown, as recorded by artists including Otis Redding, The Drifters, Etta James, Tina Turner, Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd and Wilson Pickett. The Mynx Soul Band band traces its origins back to the late 1960’s when six friends were in a successful band in Essex playing Soul Music. The band had to disband for reasons including going to University and studying for professional qualifications. Over the years the members of the band lost touch with one another, but about seven years ago one of the members initiated a successful search for the other five original members. Two of these had emigrated (one to Jamaica and one to Australia), but the other four original members (John Lane, Derek Haynes, Jonathan George and John Orley) were reunited, and five younger members joined the reformed band.
The Roy Abrams Memorial Concert
– POSTPONED
ICKNIELD ENSEMBLE
Granados, Frank, Dohnanyi, Dvořák
Saturday 16th May 2020, 7.30pm, St. Botolph’s Church, TRUNCH
Cellist and Conductor Roy Abrams started TRUNCH CONCERTS in 1997. He retired to Trunch having been a professional musician and teacher. Seldom will a retired musician give up playing for good and he therefore sought the opportunity to work with the local community to promote concerts in an historic Norfolk Church. To enable this to happen, he even put his own grand piano in St Botolph’s. From small beginnings with musical friends and playing three concerts a year, TRUNCH CONCERTS became an important part of cultural life in North Norfolk. Thanks to Roy, since 1998 the concerts have raised about £40,000 towards restoration of the church. Roy Abrams continued to be involved in TRUNCH CONCERTS for 22 years until his death in December last year. He contributed his ideas, knowledge, humour and his encouraging support. Roy did his famous conclusions for almost all the TRUNCH CONCERTS, the last time being in August 2019. He was a lovely, genuine, talented person and knew how to make the most of life.
The Icknield Ensemble with its leader pianist Anna Le Hair, who has delighted Trunch audiences on many occasions, returns to St Botolph’s to perform a concert dedicated to Roy Abrams.
PROGRAMME:
Quintet in G minor Enrique Granados
Quintet in C Minor no. 1 Ernst von Dohnanyi
Interval
Quintet Cesar Franck
The Icknield Ensemble:
Arwen Newband and Rachel Boxall – violins
Nicholas Turner – viola
Sarah Boxall – cello
Anna Le Hair – piano
ASHLEY GROTE – Master of Music at Norwich Cathedral. Organ Recital
Bach, Purcell, Elgar, Mendelssohn
– POSTPONED
Saturday 20th June 2020, 7.30pm, St. Botolph’s Church, TRUNCH
A varied programme of favourite organ music, including works by J.S. Bach, Buxtehude, Byrd, Purcell, Elgar, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Vierne.
Ashley Grote has held the post of Master of Music at Norwich Cathedral since September 2012. He is responsible for the day-to-day running of the Cathedral music department, directing the boys’ and girls’ choirs in their busy programme of choral services, concerts, broadcasts, tours and recordings. He also directs the Cathedral Chamber Choir, who perform frequent concerts alongside period instrument ensemble Norwich Baroque.
Ashley began his musical life as a chorister at King’s College, Cambridge 1990-1995 and returned there as organ scholar 2001-2004. As organ scholar at King’s, he performed internationally with the world-famous choir and accompanied numerous recordings, radio and television broadcasts including the annual ‘Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols’.
Much in demand as a recitalist, he has performed throughout the UK, USA and Europe with recent concerts in Italy, Germany, Finland and Sweden. His first solo disc, of organ symphonies by Louis Vierne, was described by Gramophone magazine as a ‘top-notch recording’, and his more recent recording of popular organ works from Norwich Cathedral has been heard frequently on BBC Radio 2 and Classic FM.
As a composer and arranger of organ and choral works, he has been published by Oxford University Press, Stainer & Bell, and Encore publications.
Away from music, Ashley has run four London Marathons, raising in excess of £60,000 for Great Ormond Street Hospital, where his daughter has been a patient since 2014. He is also a keen cook, appearing on the 2018 series of BBC ‘MasterChef’.
THE BeauBowBelles
Norfolk style Swing/Folk band (London)
– POSTPONED
Saturday 11th July 2020, 7.30pm, St. Nicholas Church, SWAFIELD
The BeauBowBelles are a four-piece band of foot stomping, harmony singing swing folkers.
The band first came together in early 2010. Self described as Alternative Swing Folk, The BeauBowBelles’ music inhabits both the story telling depth and heart of English folk with the more bawdy thumping accents of gypsy swing. All sung in beautiful three part harmony .
“Just makes you smile all over.” – Gaby Roslin, BBC London
“ The BeauBowBelles are the masters of the dance,
for body and soul.” – RingMaster Review
THE EYNSFORD ENSEMBLE
Mozart – Symphony No 40
Mendelssohn – Hebrides Overture
V. Williams – Lark Ascending
– POSTPONED
Saturday 25th July 2020, 7.30pm, St. Botolph’s Church, TRUNCH
The Eynsford Ensemble was formed in 2017 by Tadzik Kaznowski and his father Zbys Kaznowski. It is comprised of 24 musicians – professional, semi-professional and amateur, all with the same love for making music with friends. The main objective of the ensemble is to use music to engage, to raise funds for various good causes and raise awareness of upcoming composers. In 2020 the Eynsford Ensemble has already committed to concerts supporting young soloists and charities including the Nofolk County Youth Orchestra and the Jenny Lind Childrens Hospital.
PROGRAMME:
Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture
V. Williams – Lark Ascending with Noel Vine as Soloist.
Mozart – Symphony No 40
SHERINGHAM SHANTYMEN
Songs of the sea
– POSTPONED
Saturday 15th August 2020, 7.30pm, St. Nicholas Church, SWAFIELD
During 1988 a group of local lifeboat men and friends formed a shanty singing group to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the private sailing and pulling Sheringham lifeboat the ‘Augusta’. They enjoyed the experience so much that they decided to continue. During those first few years as they expanded they welcomed a variety of singers and musicians to join the group but always supporting the RNLI. They formalised the group in 1990 naming themselves the Sheringham Shantymen.
Over the next 29 years the group developed their own style of performing songs of the sea constantly refining their music and always trying to entertain the public and raising funds for charity.
They have appeared on national television in ‘The Big Breakfast Show’, ‘Highway’ (with the late Sir Harry Secombe), Children in Need, and ‘Blue Peter’ for which they have ‘the badge’. Since 1990 the group has completed over 1,000 public performances, made three videos and recorded 7 CD’s the most recent one in 2016.
Sheringham Shantymen Musical Director – Brian J Farrow
THE PANTALOONS THEATRE
Twelfth Night by W. Shakespeare
Saturday 5th September 2020, 7.30pm,
OUTDOOR at St. BOTOLPH’S Church, TRUNCH.
Get in a fight. Cross-dress. Throw on some yellow stockings. Love can make you do the funniest things…! The critically-acclaimed Pantaloons Theatre Company present their own brand of Shakespeare mayhem. Family-friendly fun with live music and audience participation!
The Pantaloons are a vibrant and anarchic theatre company who bring a vital sense of “play” back to classical performance. The Pantaloons aim to recapture an aspect of Shakespeare’s comedies which the modern naturalistic theatre has lost: the riotous energy of the clown.
“Witty, energetic and accessible” – The Guardian
RACHEL FRYER, piano
Bach’s Goldberg Variations / Variations Down the Line
– POSTPONED
Saturday 26th September 2020, 7.30pm, St. Botolph’s Church, TRUNCH
Pianist Rachel Fryer will perform Bach’s Goldberg Variations with further exciting specially commissioned variations composed by Michael Finnissy, Nicola Lefanu, Alison Kay, Samuel Becker and Julian Broughton.
Rachel Fryer is a sensitive piano player who is known as much for the depth of her musical understanding as her virtuosity. She studied in the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and The Royal College of Music, where she was awarded a Masters Degree in Advanced Performance. Rachel Fryer is equally at home as a soloist, with an orchestra or as an accompanist and has given recitals throughout the UK, including at Croydon’s Fairfield Hall and as part of ‘Live Music Now!’. Her recordings have been broadcast on Classic FM and on European radio and television and she is Visiting Lecturer in Piano Studies for the East Sussex Academy of Music.
THIS IS MY THEATRE (Sussex)
Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol
SUNDAY 29th November 2020, 7.30pm, St. Botolph’s Church, TRUNCH
On Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean-spirited and miserly old man, is visited by the ghost of his business partner Jacob Marley. Shown Christmas’ Past, Present and Future he is offered the chance of redemption…but will he take it?
THIS IS MY THEATRE is a Sussex based theatre company which was formed in 2016 from talented young actors and musicians. Theis first production was Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, performed in 2016 at St Botolph’s Church (South Downs near Steyning). Due to the great popularity of the performance This is My Theatre then toured Sussex and Surrey and haven’t looked back since.
Now THIS IS MY THEATRE with great success tours all over the country and performs in historical places like medieval churches and National Trust venues. In 2019 their tours with Macbeth and Romeo & Juiet received a lot of very positive reviews.
Previous productions include The Tempest at Brighton Fringe Festival (2017), Macbeth (Touring, 2017), The Importance of Being Earnest- (Touring, 2018), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland -(Touring, 2018).
In June 2019 THIS IS MY THEATRE brought Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet to St Nicholas Church (Swafield) and received a very enthusiastic reception.
What people said about the performance at St Nicholas in Swafield:
“Many congratulations on that wonderful evening last night. By far the best theatre experience I have ever had, completely encompassing and at one with the medieval church. We both felt overcome by it. Thank you!”
“Thanks to you for another enjoyable evening! I had to keep dodging the daggers from my prime position in the pews! And the music really added to the experience. The actors were all well trained. (I think Romeo actually really loved Juliet in real life!) … It was as close as I will ever get to a stage play again unless you all put on another one !! Please do!“
Performers reserve the right to change their programmes from those indicated in the brochure or website. The organising team will take reasonable steps to give notice if any concert has to be postponed or cancelled. Please check this website for up to date information closer to the dates of the concert. To receive our newsletters please email admin@trunchconcerts.com