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VIVALDI GLORIA

The New London Singers in Trafalgar Square

Wednesday July 9,2008

By Emily Garnham

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St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, Friday July 4th.

CLASSICAL music lovers were treated to a choral and orchestral feast at St Martin-In-The-Fields on Independence Day.

Marking the release of their new album, New London Singers performed some of Antonio Vivaldi’s best-known works with the New London Soloists Orchestra.

An imaginative line-up also featured timely musical tributes to the US including a rather hurried, but suitably spine-tingling rendition of Barber’s Adagio For Strings.

And two compositions by Nevada born musician Eric Whitacre set to poetry by ee cummings and Charles Anthony Silvestri showed off the technical prowess of the 40-strong choir.

It seemed an odd contrast to the selected works of Antonio Vivaldi’s instrumental and choral repertoire but maintained the element of surprise and they reeled us in with Ostro Picta and Magnificat.

Charismatic conductor Ivor Setterfield startled the audience when he spun around and hit us with a counter-tenor solo, refusing to be defeated by his evident shortness of breath.

Watch out for Ivor on a forthcoming BBC reality show called Maestro, in which seven celebrities compete for the chance to conduct an orchestra at the Last Night Of The Proms.

He told me he’s been tutoring jungle star Goldie, famous for his gleaming gold gnashers.

New London Singers are as yet unsigned, but their album Vivaldi Gloria is available from their website.

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