Remembering - A Concert Celebrating Eric Wetherell

Aim

We are raising funds for a concert celebrating the life and works of Eric Wetherell (1925 - 2021)

Join us on November 19th 2022 at 7.30pm in the glorious surroundings of St Mary Redcliffe Church, Bristol for a special celebration of the life and music of renowned composer Eric Wetherell, performed by an array of choirs and orchestras who knew and admired his work.

Eric Wetherell was born in Tyneside and worked extensively in music at the highest levels, from playing horn professionally under Beecham and Kempe, to working with the WNO and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, to his time as senior music producer for BBC Radio 3 in the South West.  He was instrumental in the development of St George's as a concert venue in Bristol and spent the last forty years of his life contributing to the musical soul of the city.

This special evening will showcase Eric's broad range of compositional skills, from his lyrical writing for choir, to his tender, emotional operatic music to his expansive and thrilling writing for orchestra.  

• Members of the local choir Miscellany will perform a number of Eric's choral works, joined for some by singers from the Bristol G&S Operatic Society, which Eric conducted for many years.  
  • During the pandemic, Eric generously allowed his music to be shared widely to bring joy to thousands, and he found a substantial audience for his work around the world.  The concert will showcase a new digital performance of Eric's arrangement of My Lagan Love, recorded by Homechoir - a choir started online and featuring thousands of members worldwide.
    • A selection of movements from Eric’s two acclaimed operas A Foreign Field (2010) and The Snow Child (2012) will be performed by celebrated soloists with full orchestra.  These two works, composed when Eric was in his 80s, were performed to excellent reviews (quotes below) and A Foreign Field was restaged in November 2018 to commemorate the centenary of the end of the First World War. The revival performance won the NODA Award for Best Operatic Performance 2018.
    • The World Premiere of Eric’s final work, Portrait of a City, a suite for full orchestra written for and dedicated to the City of Bristol will take place, alongside movements from the Bristol Quay Suite and the Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Strings, with guest performer Chris Gradwell from the Little Big Band.
    • The audience will also be treated to a performance of movements from We Are The Women, a powerful work exploring the themes of war from the female perspective. This collection of songs with words by Elizabeth Major never fails to inspire and move audiences and at this point in human history has never been more relevant.

The programme for the concert has been specially chosen to highlight Eric’s talent for writing exceptionally beautiful melodies and harmonies that support but never overwhelm them.  Eric used to say “I was born in the wrong era” when describing his music, and those who appreciate excellent tunes will very much enjoy his music.

The performance will be narrated by John Telfer (Rev Alan Franks from BBC Radio 4's The Archers) and conducted by Ben England who was awarded the BEM in October 2020 for services to choral music and the community.

The concert will support the wonderful work of St Peter's Hospice where Eric spent some of the last months of his life and all profits plus a retiring collection will go to this essential charitable organisation.  

Reviews of Eric's work:

In 2012, Richard Morrison from The Times reviewed Eric’s opera A Foreign Field in which he said “there’s an integrity and nobility about its understated melancholy and bittersweet lyricism. 

Gerry Parker of Evening Post wrote of Eric’s “lovely lyrical score” and the story “told with warmth and understanding” 

The first performance by the Welsh National Opera was in Bristol in 1968 when Eric conducted ‘Rigoletto’.  Ken Loveland  (The Times) wrote “Eric Wetherell’s conducting, tense, tightly controlled, and completely informed about all the dramatic stresses which make this Italian opera’s first really great score, was a foundation on which a convincing stage performance could grow…”  (Eric was invited to the WNO’s 50th anniversary production at the Bristol Hippodrome in 2018). 

“Eric, whose status as a Mozart conductor continues to grow, kept the ensembles tight and unified…and ensured the sort of balance (from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra) that enabled the maximum of …Mozart to be enjoyed.”

This project successfully funded on 23rd August 2022