St. Endellion Easter Festival 12th April - 20th April 2025
We had a wonderful Easter Festival in April 2025 – lots of beautiful music-making, happy participants and happy audiences. Here is what we did:
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The festival opened on Saturday 12th April with our usual Come & Sing, directed this year by Oliver Tarney and featuring a selection of choruses from Mendelssohn’s Elijah. Over 70 people attended and Samantha Rowe and James Bartlett were amazing soloists for our free performance after lunch.
On Palm Sunday we had Choral Evensong at 4.30 pm featuring music by Annabel Rooney and Orlando Gibbons. Rt Revd Hugh Nelson, Bishop of St Germains, gave the sermon.
On Palm Sunday evening, several festival members took part in Paul Fiddes’ Shakespearean liturgy Facing the Storm with Love: based on Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, at St Minver Church. This event of Christian worship was presented by members from the North Cornwall Cluster of Churches with new music and poetry performed by the poet Christopher Southgate.
The Festival’s Opening Concert was on Monday 14th April at 7.30pm and included a powerful performance of Beethoven’s 1st Symphony, conducted by Daniel Hogan. It was preceded by two beautiful works of Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 and Jesu, meine Freude with the full chorus.
Tuesday’s chamber concert was a programme of Lieder featuring Claire Sutton-Williams singing Debussy and internationally renowned soprano Rachel Nicholls singing Berg with Michael Dussek on piano. Kerenza Peacock played Three Romances for Violin and Piano by Clara Schumann before an inspiring second half with Robert Schumann’s pioneering and exciting Piano Quintet.
An atmospheric late night Organ recital followed in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the St Endellion Goetze and Gwynn organ, also incorporating harpsichord and chamber organ, performed by Robert Quinney, Jamal Sutton and Nigel Spooner.
Wednesday 16th featured the festival chorus and orchestra in an evening concert. The Festival Chorus and a brass ensemble performed an exquisite selection of works for chorus and brass by Gesualdo, Bruckner and Stravinsky, curated and directed by Harry Bradford. This was followed by an electric performance of Shostakovich’s exhilarating 9th Symphony, conducted by Daniel Hogan.
On Maundy Thursday we were at St Kew for a lunchtime concert curated and directed by distinguished violinist Paul Barritt. We were treated to a very special performance of Mozart’s Oboe Quartet, with Rees Webster on oboe, and works by Schumann, Rebecca Clarke and Ernö Dohnányi.
Back at St Endellion, we were treated to a moving early evening ‘Lamentations’ concert starting at 5.30pm. Exploring themes of grief, loss and suffering as reflected in the Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet, this programme featured laments through the ages – including Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, beautifully sung by Claire Sutton-Williams, the stunning world premiere of The Forsaken Merman by Anita Mawhinney, winner of the 2025 St Endellion Easter Festival Composition Competition, for vocal quartet and violin solo, and one of the highlights of the whole festival, James Hall (counter-tenor) performing a Lamentation by Zelenka.
On Good Friday, the full chorus (chorus master Fanny Cooke) and orchestra, conducted by Harry Sever, performed Dvořák’s Stabat Mater, a beautiful and moving sacred oratorio to the text of a medieval devotional poem depicting the suffering of the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross. The soloists were Rachel Nicholls (soprano), Peter Hoare (tenor), Claire Sutton-Williams (mezzo) and Julian Close (bass).
The Friday concert was followed by a short Tenebrae service containing Responses and Lamentations for Holy Saturday. Starting in candlelight and ending in total darkness and beautifully sung, it was a powerful spiritual experience entirely in keeping with the place and the occasion.
Saturday 19th April brought an evening Chamber Concert which in true Endellion Festival tradition showcased a varied selection of works for more unusual instrumental combinations. It featured works composed in the 1920s by Elgar, Poulenc, Bax, Martinu and Warlock which were all exquisitely performed.
The Easter Sunday Eucharist service at 11:00 featured the full festival chorus and we concluded the festival with Bach’s 4th Brandenburg Concerto, Janacek’s Suite for Strings, and Bach’s exuberant, joyful Easter Oratorio in a concert which began at 4pm. The solo and ensemble playing in the Brandenburg was lovely; the sonority of the string sound in the Suite for Strings was a delight; and soloists, chorus and orchestra rose wonderfully to the occasion in the Easter Oratorio under the excellent conducting of Harry Sever
Truly a festival to remember, reminding us that the Easter Festival torch burns as brightly as ever.
