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Director: Theresa Caudle

Working with choirs…...

“…..there is no other team of musicians that comes anywhere close and I can't imagine ever performing that glorious music with anyone else!”  

Brian Kay, Leith Hill Musical Festival

Canzona very much enjoys working with choirs and can provide a baroque orchestra or smaller ensemble for choral works from the late renaissance and early baroque up to the late 18th century. We also offer appropriate “classical” instruments for performances of Mozart, Haydn and their contemporaries.

We have a wealth of experience in this area and have built up lasting relationships with several choral societies, professional choruses and church and cathedral choirs. We have built up a reputation not only for our fine playing and well-organised professionalism but also for the positive atmosphere, enthusiasm and friendliness which our players bring to every occasion.

“I was absolutely thrilled with the performance of Canzona - utterly professional and responsive.  Under your wonderful leadership they produced a performance of real beauty and vivid contrast.  The string playing was immaculate and the wind and brass obbligatos were of the very highest quality.  As a conductor, I found the orchestra to be exceptionally courteous and malleable, and by the time of the concert I felt a real sense of oneness between all performing forces - a remarkable achievement after only a 3 hour rehearsal……

“The soloists, audience and choir members have all described Canzona's performance as some of the finest period instrument orchestral playing that they have had the pleasure of hearing in many years.  I wholeheartedly concur.  It was an absolute privilege to work with you and your fabulous musicians.”

Christopher Finch, Bristol Bach Choir

Canzona is a flexible ensemble with a core of four string players and continuo team but, thanks to Theresa Caudle’s versatility in playing the cornett as well as violin, viola and viola d’amore, we encompass early wind and brass in our team and are thus in a position to provide a complete ensemble of cornetts, sackbuts, strings and continuo under one umbrella for Monteverdi’s Vespers and other splendid polychoral works of this period.

Apart from Monteverdi’s Vespers, the works for which we most frequently provide an orchestra are Bach’s St. John and St. Matthew Passions, B Minor Mass and Christmas Oratorio, and Handel’s Messiah. Other Handel oratorios such as Israel in Egypt, Alexander’s Feast and his Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day; Purcell’s odes and anthems and works by Charpentier and de Lalande have also featured in our concerts with choirs. We have often contributed orchestral items within choral programmes, normally directed by Theresa; pieces include the Bach Double Violin Concerto, Brandenburg Concerto no.3,  and Concerti Grossi by Corelli or Handel.

For a list of our performances with choirs, please see below.

Our library

We own parts for many of the works we regularly perform – the Bach Passions, Christmas Oratorio and B Minor Mass (Bärenreiter edition), Messiah (also Bärenreiter), and Monteverdi’s Vespers (King’s Music) to name but a few.  We do not make any charge for using these parts in our performances.

Keyboard hire

We normally arrange the hire and tuning of a suitable chamber organ and/or harpsichord from one of the leading providers.

St Matthew Passion            © Blackburn Cathedral

Canzona in rehearsal at St Albans Cathedral            © Canzona

Rehearsing Monteverdi Vespers at Douai Abbey                    © Canzona

Handel Ode for St Cecilia’s Day - Final Chorus.

From a live concert with Somerset Chamber Choir conducted by Graham Caldbeck in Wells Cathedral 2007

de Lalande - Regina Coeli - Ora Pro Nobis.

From a live concert with Somerset Chamber Choir conducted by Graham Caldbeck in Wells Cathedral 2007

Handel Ode for St Cecilia’s Day - From Harmony.

From a live concert with Somerset Chamber Choir conducted by Graham Caldbeck in Wells Cathedral 2007

Choral performances…...

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Contact us……

For further information please e-mail info@canzona.co.uk or contact:

Jill Caudle, General Manager -118 Wise Lane, East Knoyle, Salisbury, Wilts SP3 6AB   Tel: 01747 830625   Fax: 0843 290 9026  

e-mail: jill@canzona.co.uk

Polly Smith, Marketing Manager - 32 Gatwick Road, London SW18 5UF  Tel: 020 8425 9298  e-mail: polly@canzona.co.uk

Theresa Caudle, Director - Apple Tree Cottage, Well Street, Burghclere, Nr Newbury, Berkshire RG20 9HS  

e-mail: theresa@canzona.co.uk

Canzona Ltd - Registered Company No. 5464208