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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop
@suepersop.bsky.social
35 followers 92 following 38 posts
Singing with Selly Park Singers and Birmingham Bach Choir. Collecting my favourite sopranos🎵and choirs.
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 5d
It was so good…do come again soon.
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 6d
Thought you might like this collage at University of Birmingham music building. Good luck with your book. However, I am going to unfollow you, because the sheer volume of your posts dominates my feed and I am more into classical music 🎶
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · 9d
It sounded beautiful 👏👏
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Aug 24
Excellent interview! I can thoroughly recommend @leahbroad.bsky.social’s book so engagingly written.
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Jul 29
I am reading it currently on google play. Amazing stories, beautifully written written👏👏
drkkennedy.bsky.social
Dr Kate Kennedy @drkkennedy.bsky.social · Jul 28
🎉 Exclusive 4-day offer!

The paperback of my book Cello 🎻 is now 25% off — available only on the @waterstones.bsky.social website & app! 📚✨

🛒 Use code SUMMER25 at the basket stage of checkout.

🔗 tidd.ly/412UZMq

@headofzeus.bsky.social
#Cello #WPreorder #Bookstagram #BookLaunch @ox.ac.uk
Cello by Kate Kennedy | Waterstones
Buy Cello by Kate Kennedy from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.
tidd.ly
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Jun 23
What a lovely review. We hope lots of people will come again when we sing it with #JoannaForbesLEstrange and a host of #ComeandSingers! 9th August. @sellyparksingers.co.uk for details.
sellyparksingers.co.uk
Selly Park Singers @sellyparksingers.co.uk · Jun 23
Another review of our ‘A Season to Sing’ concert has arrived today:
www.sellyparksingers.co.uk/concert-revi...
Thanks to Ann Day for another great review!
Concert Review II: ‘A Season to Sing’ Summer Concert 2025 – Selly Park Singers
www.sellyparksingers.co.uk
suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Jun 14
Triumphant
Birmingham premiere of #JoannaForbesL’Estrange’s reimagining of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons for choir. Virtuoso performance by Tom Howell on organ as the violin soloist. @organistpaul.bsky.social brought the best out of @sellyparksingers.co.uk with inspiring direction. Sell
out audience too👏👏
sellyparksingers.co.uk
Selly Park Singers @sellyparksingers.co.uk · Jun 12
This Saturday, 14 June 2025 at 3:00pm… 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

Tickets: sellyparksingers.co.uk
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Reposted by suepersop
mikegalsworthy.bsky.social
Mike Galsworthy @mikegalsworthy.bsky.social · May 13
“I woke up with a sense of dread…”

— from an EU citizen in the UK on how Labour’s new rhetoric is shaking people’s sense of belonging.

Powerful open letter. 👇
Letter: We are not strangers
Letter to the editor
eastangliabylines.co.uk
33 290 670
suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Apr 5
We’re going next week! Can’t wait 😊. Meanwhile, 😮singing #BachBminorMass tonight at Lichfield Cathedral with #BirminghamBach and Sophie Bevan+ Roderick Williams😀😀😮😮
silverlawn.bsky.social
ClareStevens @silverlawn.bsky.social · Apr 5
At the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff to see Welsh National Opera’s new production of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes. Cast includes Nicky Spence as Grimes and Sarah Connolly as Auntie.
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 27
reprising the introduction, with words and sentiments from Ecclesiastes and a call for peace, Dona Nobis Pacem. After a magical pause, the audience responded to this amazing piece of music with a prolonged standing ovation.
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 27
A swingle style lyrical scat melody from sopranos and pizzicato raindrops from the other parts enchanted the audience and brought tears to the composer’s eyes. The final movement, set to words from Genesis served to summarise all four seasons and led neatly into Joanna’s postlude…
suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 27
of the violin solo. Organist Gavin Roberts rose to the challenge in this and every movement brilliantly. Winter’s slow movement brought us cosy warmth with a moving tribute to the late Ward Swingle, Joanna’s mentor.
suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 27
Whereas Vivaldi thinks of this as a hunt scene, Joanna’s setting of Psalm 150 transformed it into a hymn of praise on various musical instruments.
Winter started with frost, portrayed by the choir singing icy staccato syllables from Vivaldi’s own Italian sonnet, against a virtuoso organ arrangement
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 27
Autumn began with a rousing harvest hymn, cleverly intertwined with an account of the creation story sung by the confident high sopranos in the choir. The following slow movement found Emily Brontë again musing on the fall of leaves in autumn, before the choir joyfully sang two psalm arrangements.
suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 27
the opposite process to the usual setting of lyrics to original music. The third movement of summer was magical, with body percussion evoking the summer storm (and more laughter from the audience as they enjoyed the effect).
suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 27
Summer also began in madrigal style with cuckoos, moonlight and the first hints at a thunderstorm. The first two movements benefit from the insertion of Emily Brontë’s haunting poem, Moonlight, Summer Moonlight. Joanna has been really clever in retro-fitting words into Vivaldi’s music…
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 27
impressive whistling to represent birdsong! Sopranos soared beautifully with the lark in the slow central movement before a vocal evocation of bagpipe drones from lower voices entertained the audience in a fa-la-la chorus inspired by Thomas Morley.
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 27
This calmly sets the scene in a baroque style, though I thought the organ introduction had a distinct echo of the In Paradisum from the requiem by Fauré (who also had an anniversary last year).
Then spring saw the chorus confidently taking the soloistic violin part with some particularly…
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 27
After an introduction by the composer, outlining her motivation and the process of composing this intricate tribute to Vivaldi, we launched into the main piece. Joanna bookends the 12 movements taken from the Four Seasons with her own compositions to words from Ecclesiastes.
suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 27
.. by Rebekah Abbott, whose flowing arm movements elicited passion, style and great diction from the singers.
The first half of the programme consisted of other pieces written by Joanna and her husband Alexander L’Estrange, plus choral works which formed inspiration for some of Joanna’s libretto…
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 27
imaginative and exciting new work and we give its Birmingham premiere on 14 June. On this occasion, the choir was Luminosa Voices, an eighty-strong ensemble of confident singers, who have learned the piece in record time since scores were released in December 2024. They were brilliantly conducted
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 27
I went to London’s oldest (and most atmospheric) parish church, St Bartholomew the Great, on Saturday 22 March to hear the launch concert for Joanna Forbes L’Estrange’s reimagining of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. My choir, Selly Park Singers is one of 55 choirs worldwide to co-commission this…
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 23
@sellyparksingers.co.uk follow with a Birmingham premiere in June.
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suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 23
Very moving launch concert for #JoannaForbesL’Estrange a Season to Sing, reimagining #VivaldiFourSeasons. Luminosa Voices were on tremendous form at St Bart’s the Great in London. 👏👏
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suepersop.bsky.social
suepersop @suepersop.bsky.social · Mar 20
Congratulations to #joannaforbesl’estrange and friends for some lovely samples of A Season to Sing on #BBCradio3Intune this afternoon (between two 5 and 6pm GMT) including some impressive whistling!
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