Durham Cathedral choir take to the stage

Jun 4 2009 by Barbara Hodgson, The Journal

TWO of the North East’s landmark buildings – one ancient, one modern– team up tomorrow night for a charity concert to be hosted by popular author Bill Bryson.

Durham Cathedral and The Sage Gateshead are joining forces to help raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

And the cathedral choir, its consort of singers and The Palatinate Ensemble will be performing together at The Sage for the first time.

The evening will include spirituals from A Child of Our Time by Michael Tippett and such favourites as How Beautiful Are The Feet by Handel; Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus; Fauré’s ‘Pie Jesu’; choral music by Purcell, plus instrumental interludes from The Palatinate Ensemble.

Travel writer Bryson has long been a champion of Durham, having praised it for having ‘the best cathedral on the planet’ in his 1995 book Notes from a Small Island, and urging readers: ‘Go at once. Take my car’.

The cathedral has had a choir from the earliest time of its foundation in 1093.