Venite Gaudete - Adrian Peacock - The Pembroke College Chapel Choir/Anna Lapwood

It's Bridgemas Eve! Celebrating with another track from 'A Pembroke Christmas': Adrian Peacock’s Venite, gaudete! starts with a single line singing an ostinato which gradually expands and intensifies, paving the way for some thrilling double-choir writing. We first sang this piece for our 2021 Advent carol service; the choir was excited to sing this piece with a congregation present as we had been particularly enjoying getting to grips with it in the rehearsals over the previous couple of weeks. As is so often the case in live music, though, things didn’t go entirely to plan. I had given the choir strict instructions to sound as menacing as possible; this clearly worked because as the piece started to really get going, a baby started crying, becoming increasingly vocal through to the end of the piece, much to the amusement of everyone in the chapel.
Buy/Stream A Pembroke Christmas here: lnk.to/APembro...

[@kristianrc9139]

How could we not love your job ❤

[@WehoLinda]

Very nice arrangement! It kept on surprising me! Also I loved that everybody is smiling and it is clear that everybody enjoys the atmosphere as well as the song of course. Thank you for all of you! ❤️

[@clivefelgate9802]

Powerful,beautiful and very thrilling! Great sound. 👏.

[@fletch2229]

Stunning - I love these brief moments of total choir focus

[@dnbeckmann]

Love the story about the baby! Poor thing. Lovely rendition!

[@bluowl148]

Fantastic 👏👏👏

[@zaneclone]

That's brightened up a rather wet, windy Welsh Thursday lol... :)

[@jori4345]

Wunderschön!

[@mariozzyofficial]

Excellent !!! 👍👏👏👏👏

[@hanovanderwalt2776]

Wow, just wow, your conducting of this piece brings out a color and feel I don't find on other recordings, Brava!

[@itamarbar9580]

Looking at it as an orchestra conducting student, fantastic work done by the choir and conductor to prepare this, but I think orchestral conducting looks more exciting, due to the scale and power given to the conductor in Mahlerian works

[@chrisburn7178]

As the victim of over-enthusiastic choral conductors in the past, my developed view is that large gestures are a mostly a sign of lack of control, insecurity or both. Trying to "drag" a hesitant chorus along or make more noise with manic waving is unsightly in a choral situation and rarely achieves anything beyond eliciting the feeling in your singers that they're not doing what you want. Skilled singers (like here) will know what is required and just need a gentle reference for entries; precise movements but with plenty of contained energy should be all that's required for climaxes. Conversely, if your chorus is unskilled or unfamiliar, they're unlikely to do what you want regardless, but a smaller, more precise movement might be more likely to make them have to look up which is never a bad thing. Anna is absolutely the epitome of this and it's great to watch and listen to. I absolutely understand that watching an orchestral conductor sweating buckets in the middle of The Firebird is both exhilarating and pretty much expected as part of the experience though, so horses for courses.