Harmonia Chamber Singers perform two British-inspired concerts; sacred, popular & jazz pieces featured

Oh, to be in England. Or Scotland. Or Ireland.

Ae you longing for Britain? Join the Harmonia Chamber Singers for “A British Choral Tapestry” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 17, at First Presbyterian Church, 21 Church St., Lockport; and 4 p.m. Sunday, May 19, at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 724 Delaware Ave., Buffalo.

Tickets are $15 and are available online at www.harmoniacs.org or at the door one hour before each performance.

The program will feature choral works from classic British composers including Ralph Vaughan Williams, Orlando Gibbons, and John Lennon and Paul McCartney. (Yes, that Lennon and McCartney.)

“One of my fondest memories from Harmonia's early years was our performance of the Swingle Singers' arrangement of ‘When I'm Sixty-Four,’ which we are bringing back for the upcoming concerts’ said Robert Pacillo, Harmonia founder and executive director. “It's fun, playful, catchy, well-written, and it embodies the eclectic nature of Harmonia's stylistic palette. We can go from Byrd to the Beatles and everything in between, all in one program. Just like Gibbons, Byrd, Stanford and Rutter, Lennon and McCartney have earned a place among the greatest of the British composers and, over the next several hundred years, we will still be singing their music.”

Pianist Nick Weiser, assistant professor at SUNY Fredonia School of Music, accompanies Harmonia on “In Windsor Forest,” a cantata based on Ralph Vaughan Williams’ opera “Sir John in Love.”

Weiser will also play John Rutter’s “Birthday Madricals” for piano and double bass, which were composed for jazz pianist George Shearing. Michael Zogaib, a scholarship student at the Cleveland Institute of Music, will play double bass on these pieces.

For more information on “A British Choral Tapestry,” which concludes Harmonia’s 13th concert season, visit www.Harmoniacs.org.