We are delighted to welcome back Lee Choral Society, directed by Richard Dewland, who bring us our annual New Year Concert and a very beautiful programme on Sunday 4th January, 3.30pm. Free entrance with retiring collection. Your donations help us to maintain our historic organ - thank you! Tea and cakes to follow.
Programme
Charpentier Messe De Minuit (extracts)
(Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei)
Mozart - Laudate Dominum
(Choir with soloist, Erin Nizolak)
Sans Dan Carol (trad. Cornish, arr. John Rutter)
Wenceslas (Choir with soloists; Erin Nizolak and Hector Walker)
I. Wintertide
II. Who Can That Be?
III. Forth They Went
IV. Winter Dark (sometimes noted as Interlude - Winter Dark)
V. Sleeping in Winter’s Arms
VI. Thank You
VII. Fanfare - Winter Bright
VIII. On St. Stephen’s Night
The Infant King arr. Willcocks
O Holy NIght - Adolphe Adams (soloist, Erin Nizolak)
LCS - Nativity Carol John Rutter
Vivaldi - Gloria,; 1st Movember, Gloria in Excelsis Deo
Biographies
In addition to our very own Richard Dewland, director of the Lee Choral Society, we are grateful to:
David Hall - a versatile musiciam who is equally at home playing cathedral evensong, running a children’s choir or directing a big band. He studied the piano with Laura Cole and Freni Cha and the organ with Anne Marsden Thomas at the Royal Acadamy of Music. In 1996, he was appointed organ scholar at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In the following years, he played regularly at Chelmsford Cathedral and became Assistant Director of Music at Felsted School in Essex. David is now Director of Music at Twyford School in Hampshire and Musical Director of Finchcocks Piano Courses in Kent. He combines these three roles with freelance work accompanying, conducting and composing. Under his leadership, the children at Twyford School have take part in ten professional operas at Grange Park, have recorded two CDs and have sung in concert tours of France and Italy. David is the author of the interactive book and video series There’s More to Playing the Piano, which is an innovative introduction to music theory and keyboard harmony.
Erin Nizolak is an American soprano from Seattle. She earned her Bachelor of Music with a minor in English from Western Washington University, where she performed in choral concerts, art song recitals, opera scenes, and premiered a role in a newly composed operetta. She served a church cantor, finding in sacred music a space of discipline and devotion. After graduation, her family traveled to South Korea, Germany, and now England. Throughout these travels, and amid the joyful uproar of raising five children, music remained a steady thread. Erin returned to solo performance this past October at St Faith’s. She is grateful for the chance to lift her voice and share in the beauty of live music ad we are delighted that she has chosen to sing with LCS!
Hector Walker is a singer, conductor and composter from Farnham, Surrey. Having sung in choirs for as long as he can remember, including stints in the National Youth Choir and at the Royal Chapel of All Saints in Windsor (frequently performing at church services for Queen Elizabeth), Hector graduated from the University of Southampton in 2025 with a Bacherlor’s degree in music specialising in vocal performance, choral conducting and commercial composition. He has performed with numerous ensembles while at university, including as a baritone soloist for Faure’s Requiem with the Brockenhurst Choral Society; and as the conductor of the Southampton University Singers, the university’s largest choir, for three years. When not singing, Hector works as a music and theatre technician at Frensham Heights School and in his spare time enjoys songwriting and playing Dungeons and Dragons.