Welcome to Hyde900

Hyde900 is a community project in Winchester, Hampshire, to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the founding of Hyde Abbey. For more details see the "What is Hyde900?" page.

To open our short series of concerts we will be featuring two young performers, both of whom live in Hyde, to set the standard for what is to come.  YOUNG SOUNDS CLASSICAL (Saturday 4 September), a musical soiree, will feature violinist Avril Freemantle a former pupil of  King Edward VI School, Southampton and now a student at the Royal Northern College of Music. Avril’s programme will consist of the Violin Concerto No.4 (movements 1 and 2) by Mozart; Scherzo in C minor by Brahms; Cavatina by Raff and Tambourin Chinois by Kreisler. Avril will be joined by pianist Marcus Martin, formerly of Peter Symonds, who is currently studying music at King’s College London, London. Marcus’s programme will consist of Debussy’s First Arabesque, Mendelssohn’s  Rondo Capricioso, Beethoven’s Sonata Pathetique, Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu and, to change the mood,  Somewhere over the Rainbow by Keith Jarrett.

The following week, Saturday September 11th, in a Hyde900 ‘Associate event’  we are delighted that the CAMBRIDGE TAVERNER CHOIR will be performing at St Cross ‘Reformation and Renaissance: Choral Masterpieces of the 16th Century’. Included in the programme will be motets by the two greatest composers of the English Renaissance,  Thomas Tallis and William Byrd. Tallis’s career spanned the destruction of the monasteries, which he experienced at first hand, so is particularly apposite to feature as part of the Hyde900 programme. Tickets for this concert (and only this one) are available from the Winchester Cathedral box office.

We are also pleased to welcome back to Hyde THE MADDING CROWD, the well-established and highly popular exponents of ‘West Choir’ music who model themselves on the popular church choirs of Thomas Hardy’s Wessex novels. Their concert on Saturday 25 September is titled ‘Sound up the tune Neighbours’ and will feature music sung or composed in Hampshire during the period 1750 -1850 approx. “We will aim to include as many references as we can to events in Hyde at that time,” says the choir’s co-ordinator Brenda Bennett.

For our next performance on Saturday 9 October we are particularly indebted to Hyde resident James McConnachie who has persuaded a number of his fellow choir members from Southern Voices to create – for one night only ! – HYDE VOICES which will perform works by Tallis ( Te lucis ante terminum), Byrd (4 part Mass – omitting the Credo), English Madrigals and Campion’s’ Never weather-beaten sail’. This will be followed by Stanford Latin motets (Justorum animae, Beati quorum via, Coelos scendit), Parry’s  Songs of Farewell and English Romantic Part-songs. It sounds like a terrific evening.

Finally to conclude the sequence of performances on Sunday 24th October we welcome a strong contribution from the UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER which is kindly providing two of its choirs – the King Alfred Singers and the Cantatus Chamber Choir – conducted by the Rev Professor June Boyce-Tillman MBE and Dr Vicky Feldwick.

As befits the final event of our season ‘Singing the mystery – exploring church music across the centuries’ will reflect a wide diversity of church music styles. This will range from the plainchant hymns of the Middle Ages through Baroque and Classical composers into the English choral tradition with composers such as Stanford and Balfour Gardiner. We are particularly excited that the concert will include one specially written piece using prayers from King Alfred as well as part of the music drama from the Winchester Troper – one of the oldest collections of two-part music in Europe dating from about 1000 – and other contemporary compositions written by staff at the university.

By bringing a series of concerts to St Bartholomew’s this autumn we hope to show off the church’s marvellous acoustics to a wider audience and put down a marker for other events in the future.

We look forward to seeing you there.

  • When? Sunday 12th September 2010, 12.30 – 4.30 pm
  • Where? River Park
  • Who? All Hyde residents
  • What? Picnic, games, band, getting to know your neighbours
  • Food? Bring your own picnic, blanket and gazebo
  • How much? £5 per household (Over 70s free)
  • Get involved! We need people from each street in Hyde to join our team.
    Contact us by email: picnic@hyde900.co.uk .

You can now download a PDF version of the “Treasures” exhibition catalogue and find out exactly what’s in the exhibition. A high-quality souvenir copy of the catalogue is available to buy at the Discovery Centre gallery.

Alongside Treasures of Hyde Abbey: the exhibition, Hyde900 has invited artists from Hampshire and the surrounding area to provide their own modern interpretations.  ‘Re-imagining Treasures of Hyde Abbey’ is a contemporary visual arts exhi­bition that brings together a wide variety of work by painters, illustrators, ceramicists, sculptors, glass and textile artists.    more »

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