Cantiones Choir bids farewell to popular musical director

Martin is a distinguished musician, teacher and composer and Cantiones has been lucky to have had him at the helm since 2020. Of course very early in his tenure we all had to deal with lockdown and the implications for a social group such as a choir. Martin threw himself into solving the various difficulties firstly with weekly Zoom rehearsals and then leading us face-to-face (distanced and with masks!) in a field and a car park as well as a concert in the bandstand at Cae Glas Park. Gradually over the months rehearsals returned to normal but Cantiones only survived the pandemic with Martin’s hard work.

Since then the choir has benefitted enormously from his teaching and encouragement, and has been introduced to a wide variety of composers. There have been number of real high points; the choir’s 40th anniversary concert of Haydn’s Creation at The Holroyd Theatre, Dvorak’s Stabat Mater, and above all Edward Elgar’s beautiful and moving Dream of Gerontius for which Cantiones joined the Chester Bach Singers and the Chester Philharmonic Orchestra in a packed Chester Cathedral.

The choir will be joined by a new Musical Director in January, details of which will be announced after Christmas.

So as the year draws to a close Cantiones’ last concert under Martin Bussey’s direction, the traditional Christmas Concert, will take place on 21 December at 3.30pm in Christ Church, Oswestry. We hope that as many as possible will come to join us for this, our final musical outing with Martin.