Musical mastery: Green & Pleasant Land concert series

Green & Pleasant Land, a series of concerts featuring musicians from Tonbridge School, continues with three further events in November.

Organised by the Music Department, and based on quintessentially English themes, the concerts showcase the depth of musical and vocal talent at the school, culminating in a performance by the Symphony Orchestra.

Mark Forkgen, Director of Music, says: “After the success of our previous festivals (Back in the USSR and Home of the Brave), we wanted to concentrate on our own musical heritage and its two most fruitful periods, while also recognising the debt we owe to influences from outside the UK.”

On Sunday 4 November, the Chamber Choirs of students and solo singers perform ‘Secular Vocal Music’, a varied repertoire featuring lute songs of the First Renaissance through to Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad from the early twentieth century. The concert will finish with popular songs from Ivor Novello, Noel Coward and Sandy Wilson. 

The concert on Sunday 11 November sees the Tonbridge School Chapel Choir and Vocal Group taking centre stage, alongside students and staff from the school, to perform ‘Organ and Sacred Choral Music’. The programme includes movements from William Byrd’s Mass in Four Voices and Orlando Gibbons’ O Clap Your Hands, as well as pieces by Thomas Tallis, John Ireland and Vaughan Williams.

The final concert in the series, on Friday 23 November, features the Tonbridge School Symphony Orchestra performing William Walton’s Crown Imperial, described as an ‘ebullient overture’, and Vaughan Williams’ renowned Symphony No.5. 

Entry to the concerts is free, but advance booking is requested via www.emftheatre.com or by emailing boxoffice@tonbridge-school.org 

Green & Pleasant Land concerts:

Secular Vocal Music: Sunday 4 November.
Big School, 8.15pm. 

Organ & Sacred Choral Music: Sunday 11 November.
Chapel, 7.30pm.

Orchestral Music: Friday 23 November.
Chapel, 7.30pm.