Queen's Diamond Jubilee

By Worcestershire Life on January 18th 2012

Will be extra reason to celebrate at this year’s Elgar Festival as the anniversary of the composer’s birth coincides with the start of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee events.

Fittingly, the annual festival has adopted some regal and patriotic tones. Peter Sheeran, chief executive of the Worcestershire-based English Symphony Orchestra which is organising the annual music event, says: “The festival is taking place around Elgar’s birthday, June 2. The proximity of that date to the Jubilee celebration and Elgar’s Royal connection (he wrote the Nursery Suite and dedicated it to the young princesses Margaret and Elizabeth, as well as being Master of the King’s Musicke), meant that it made sense to introduce the royal element into the programme.”

The Elgar Festival opens on Thursday, May 31 at 3pm with a talk at the Elgar Birthplace Museum by Donald Hunt entitled Regal Elgar. This will be followed at 8pm by a concert at Worcester Cathedral featuring music played at the Queen’s Coronation – Walton’s Orb and Sceptre March and the Coronation Anthem I Was Glad, by Parry, which was also sung at the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton. The concert, performed by the ESO and The Worcestershire Choir includes Elgar’s famous Cello Concerto, with ESO soloist Peter Adams, and his last major completed work, Severn Suite. The super-patriotic finale is the choral piece Banner of St George.

The evening concert at the cathedral on Friday, June 1 features A Garland for the Queen, a cycle of songs composed by 10 of the most famous British composers of the time to mark the Queen’s Coronation – including work by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi, Sir Arthur Bliss and Herbert Howells. The programme also includes Elgar’s Serenade and Pastoral by Bliss, which was dedicated to Elgar.

Earlier in the day there’s a performance of Elgar’s String Quartet and Vaughan Williams’s String Quartet No 2 in the splendour of Croome Court, followed by a performance of the Music for the Powick Asylum at the Number 8 Theatre in Pershore.

On the anniversary of Elgar’s actual birthday on Saturday, June 2 there will be a talk about The Kingdom, which is being performed in Worcester Cathedral that evening. The talk takes place at the Parish Hall of St George RC church, where Elgar was choir-master for many years. The festival closes with the annual laying of a wreath under the Elgar memorial window in Worcester Cathedral, a ceremony which attracts members of the Elgar Society from around the world.

This festival is very much a celebration of Elgar’s contribution to the cultural life of his own county and so most of the participants have very strong Worcestershire connections. The orchestra and all three choirs are Worcester-based and conductors Donald Hunt and Christopher Robinson both directed the music at the cathedral for many years.

Malvern’s soaring tribute

One of the world’s foremost animal and bird metal sculptors has been commissioned to create a work of art that will be erected in Malvern to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

A sculpture depicting two buzzards – birds of prey associated with the Malvern Hills – will be made by internationally renowned Ross-on-Wye artist Walenty Pytel, whose fountain with heraldic beasts, outside the House of Commons, was commissioned by Parliament for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.

The mastermind behind the project, Peter Smith, has been working for more than five years to bring the idea to fruition.

The sculpture, which, with ground works will cost £18,000, has received support from Malvern Town Council, Malvern Hills District Council and private sponsorship from members of the community. Once erected in Rosebank Gardens, it will be seen from parts of the town and by many thousands of daily southbound travellers on the A449 and will indicate a gateway to the hills from the town centre.

“This is a real coup for Malvern and I have received nothing but enthusiastic support from locals and visitors alike, and across the whole age range,” says Peter. “Led by Malvern Town Council, this is something the people of Malvern can take pride in, permanently marking the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.”

Gifted to the people of Malvern by Mr Dyson Perrins, the Worcester Sauce magnate, in 1918, the beautiful terraced Rosebank Gardens with fine views over the town centre and the Severn plain are being transferred from the district council to the town council. Over the next five years the town council plans to make improvements to the gardens, with the buzzard sculpture marking the beginning of the work. The sculpture will be unveiled in the autumn of 2012.

Bromsgrove firm wins medal contract

A Bromsgrove company has been chosen to produce an official medal commemorating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Worcestershire Medal Service will manufacture an anticipated 450,000 medals and, as with the official Golden Jubilee Medal, these will be awarded to those serving in the Armed Forces and emergency and prison services in recognition of their enduring service to the country.

Worcestershire Medal Service, which holds a Royal Warrant as medallists to HM The Queen, along with Toye Kenning & Spencer Ltd and Thomas Fattorini Ltd, both from Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, submitted a joint tender to the Medals Office of the MOD for what is believed to be the largest contract for medal manufacture in the UK since the end of World War One.

Phil McDermott, managing director of Worcestershire Medal Service, says: “We are extremely proud to be entrusted with the manufacture of this special medal. We hope that as the medal honours our service personnel and celebrates the Queen’s long reign, it is also a reminder of the unrivalled manufacturing skills in the West Midlands”

The consortium comprises a great breadth of skills, from tool-making to goldsmithing and design. All three companies will be involved in the production of the finished boxed medals, with the ribbon being woven
in Toye Kenning & Spencer’s
Bedworth factory.

The medal was designed by calligrapher and illuminator, Timothy Noad. A fellow of both the Society of Scribes and Illuminators and the Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society, Timothy works as a heraldic artist for Her Majesty’s College of Arms in London.

Bromsgrove firm wins medal contract

A Bromsgrove company has been chosen to produce an official medal commemorating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Queen's Diamond Jubilee

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