Two Wonderful Memorial Concerts - Five Marvellous New Pieces

Two Wonderful Memorial Concerts
Five Marvellous New Pieces

My warmest and most profound thanks must go to the organizers and artists of two wonderful concerts in memory of my husband John McCabe.

Photo: Gareth Arnold

Firstly to John Woolf and the Park Lane Group, who put on a brilliant concert at the Purcell Room on the South Bank in London, on June 12. The music, mainly for piano, was by McCabe and Haydn, and the artists, who were all past or present PLG Young Artists - as was McCabe in his time - were Joseph Tong and Waka Hasegawa; Maria Marchant; James Kreiling; Christopher Guild; Joseph Houston, and Clare Hammond (all piano), with Simon Desbruslais (trumpet).

The programme booklet, which was very beautifully produced, included moving tributes by David Wordsworth and Francis Pott, and also many photos, as well as carrying a full-page advertisement for the charity Brain Tumour Research.

Again, many warm thanks are due to the City of Canterbury Chamber Choir, who with organist Edward Kemp-Luck and conductor George Vass, put on a deeply moving and magnificently performed choral and organ concert, at the Church of St Mary of Charity, in the lovely old market town of Faversham, Kent, on the evening of June 28. Five new tribute pieces were written by composer friends Cecilia McDowall, Deborah Pritchard, David Matthews, Robert Saxton and Thomas Hyde - three choral and two organ solo, and all beautiful and touching works. The concert started with music by Purcell and Byrd (Ave Verum Corpus), and continued after the interval with the five Spirituals arranged by Tippett from A Child of Our Time, and then the Fauré Requiem.

Both concerts were well publicized and well attended, and I would especially like to thank friends who travelled from a distance to attend. The Byrd, and the Spiritual ‘Steal Away’ had been specially chosen by John for his funeral. The Faversham concert was given in aid of the charity Brain Tumour Research, and was very successful in fund-raising. Over £400 was raised in a retiring collection, and when ticket sales are added it will represent a very useful addition to meagre research funds for this form of cancer.

My deepest gratitude to everybody.
Monica McCabe