The Meljon Singers - Serenade to Music

As part of this year's Woodford Festival, The Meljon Singers will be taking its audience through an emotional and dramatic musical journey courtesy of William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare routinely included song in his plays where they always served a dramatic purpose and on Saturday 13 October 2012 the choir will be exploring the rich diversity of musical responses to Shakespearean lyrics. Each composer offers a different and personal musical perspective on the chosen texts.

The concert will travel from the transcendent choral complexities of Vaughan Williams to the free-wheeling jazz rhythms of George Shearing and John Rutter and onwards to the choir's very own Redbridge-based musical director's settings bringing these 500 year old lyrics to present day. 

The title work, “Serenade to Music”, was written by Vaughan Williams and is not a song lyric but an extract from the text of The Merchant of Venice. Rachmaninov, who was present at its first performance, later in a letter wrote that he had never before been so moved by music. The Meljon Singers hope their own concert of Shakespearean song will prove equally inspiring for its audience!