Choral concert by The Tamesis Chamber Choir: If music be the food of love…

Did you know it’s 425 years since William Shakespeare put quill to scroll and began to craft the lines of his classic romcom Much Ado About Nothing? In a 24-year career as the nation’s flagship bard he wrote at least 38 plays.

We’re paying tribute in our next concert – we’ve tried our best to match his productivity by polishing up a gallimaufry of 22 songs in our ten weeks of rehearsal. Almost all of them use Shakespeare’s dramatic lyrics, from Much Ado to Macbeth to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The weather may be A Winter’s Tale right now but you can be sure of a warm welcome at our concert on 25th March. We’re thrilled to be performing in Henley on Thames. For one thing, it’s a wonderful location for pre-concert suppers and post-concert drinks, in one of the many agreeable hostelries near to St Mary the Virgin Church. And for another, on this occasion, there’s a topical link. Shakespeare was born in a house on Henley Street… in Stratford upon Avon. He’s practically a neighbour.

“Let me see thee caper!” we hear you cry. So to the programme. We’ll be performing music written from Elizabethan times to the present day, by the composers Arne, Morley, Wood, Vaughan Williams, Shearing, Harris, Mäntyjärvi, Olson, Williams and Tavener.

Our accompanist will be the gamesome Trevor Defferd and our musical director the egregious Louise Rapple Moore. There will also be solo interludes and interval refreshments. As Shakespeare wrote in Twelfth Night, “Good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used.” Someone should write a song about that.