The choir of Holy Trinity Church
The
organ and choir at Holy Trinity
The organ is a three manual instrument which was originally built in
the late 19th century by Willam Hill. It was rebuilt in 1926 by
Rushworth and Draper of Liverpool and apart from some tonal
modifications and solid state console additions it remains pretty well
the same as it was then, and is still considered to be one of the
finest instruments in north Wales.
The choir, which is mixed, is extremely capable and
although only moderate in numbers can perform anthems and services of
medium difficulty very well including music from Tallis to the modern
day composers in up to six parts. New members are always welcomed
but do have to be able to read music to a fairly high standard as
the choir only rehearse on Sunday mornings from 9.30am to 10.15 am,
except on very few occasions when special occasions demand. A CD
is on the agenda for this year and will contain music for the major
festivals.
Norman Rimmer is the organist and choirmaster. He has been at
Holy Trinity since 1989 and was previously organist at Waltham Abbey in
Essex for 20 years. He was recently given the Archbishop of Wales
Award for Church Music.
The choir sings at the 10.30
am service on Sundays.
Anthems sung by the choir at recent services include:
This joyful Eastertide
(arr. Wood)
Praise to God
in the highest (S S Campbell)
Lord, for thy
tender mercy's sake (Farrant)
Gaelic
Blessing (Rutter)
Wash me
thoroughly (S S Wesley)
Organ music at recent services has included:
Finale 1st Symphony
(Louis Vierne)
March on a
theme of Handel (Guilmant)
Toccata in C
(J S Bach)
Sortie
(Lefebre-Wely)
Fugue in E
minor (The Wedge) (J S Bach)
The following article was written by our Organist and Choirmaster,
Norman, for the October 2007 edition of the Parish Magazine.
In the
Pipeline
I am hoping that, by Easter 2008, there will be a CD available to
parishioners and to visitors to Holy Trinity made by the choir.
Many people over the years have asked me to make a choir recording and,
with the choir in its present state, I think we can produce
something which will be enjoyable and which can be played in the
church during the time when visitors will be around.
A CD of the organ has been in the pipeline for some time now and
should have been finished and for sale at the time of the Llandudno
Festival in July this year. Unfortunately, after three sessions,
the recording engineer had family problems and the work had to be
shelved at a stage when only about five of the eight or nine pieces had
been recorded. All the programme notes and photography for the
sleeve have been done, so it is to be hoped that we can produce copies
by Christmas this year.
As many members of the congregation stay behind to listen to the
organ music at the end of the services, I will play requests in January
and February 2008 so let me have these before December please.
Norman
If you would like to know more about the Choir, please contact
the Rector.
