Cooke’s tour during Covid-19

During lockdown, our Music Director Richard Cooke kept us entertained and informed with his weekly blogs, hosted on his website. Each week, Richard wrote about a favourite work (not necessarily choral music, as we know a bit about that). This musical diversion encouraged us to listen to something new, or to familiarise ourselves with a much-loved orchestral piece, informed by Richard’s commentary. There was a wonderful range of works chosen and Richard included some entertaining stories from his varied career (cue plenty of name dropping!) as well as stories from ‘behind the scenes’ of famous recordings and performances that we may not have known about. Who knew, for example, that Richard (as a student) conducted Peter Pears in a performance of Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, or that he conducted the soundtrack to a Ken Russell movie?

You can find Richard’s blogs on his website and the introductory videos are on our YouTube channel.