A ROUSING concert of medieval music brought Chipping Sodbury Music Society's 70th anniversary season to a fitting close.
The evening, featuring a performance from Joglaresa, also launched this year's Chipping Sodbury Festival and was a celebration of the town's 800th anniversary.
Taking place at St John’s Church, the event welcomed guests of honour, Chipping Sodbury Festival princess, Milly Sady, and her attendants Charlotte Hayward and Daisy Jones.
The widely acclaimed ensemble, Joglaresa, made a welcome return to the town performing English, Spanish and French music from the 11th to 14th centuries – just the right style of music to evoke the atmosphere of Chipping Sodbury during that period of history.
Director of Joglaresa, Belinda Sykes - voice, bagpipes was joined by Cerian Holland - voice, harp, May Robertson - fidel, voice, Guy Schalom - percussion, voice, and two new members of the group Elisabeth Flett - fidel, voice and Elsa Bradley - percussion, dulcimer.
The audience enjoyed listening to ballads of illicit love and villainous seducers, subversive medieval re-workings of hymns by errant monks and songs about a killer rabbit and a donkey (in celebration of the Feast of the Ass) as well as Belinda’s lively comments throughout the evening.
Chipping Sodbury Music Society will be back in the autumn with a new season of varied events, including classical guitarist Andreas Moutsioulis, the Ardeton Ensemble String Trio, the Russian piano virtuoso Sophia Lisovskaya (with the co-concert master for the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Sergey Levitin) and the Carismático Tango Band.
By Michelle Cook
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