and music Recital in cathedral

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32777, 30 November 1971, Page 12

and music Recital in cathedral

Music by Roman Catholic composers, with emphasis on JeanFrancois Langlais, organist of the Basilica of Saint Clotilde, Paris, is to be performed in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament next Monday evening, in a recital by the James Diack Singers, of Timaru, and the so-i prano, Patricia Stuart, j

John Middleton (organ) will also be featured, playing five organ works —two by Langlais, two by an eighteenthcentury French composer, Clerambault, and a “Pastorale” by Cesar Franck. The choir will perform a motet by a sixteenth-century Belgian composer, Josquin des Pres, and a canticle by Langlais. Patricia Stuart will be the soloist in the major work, Langlais’s “Missa in Simphcitate,” a setting of the Mass for solo voice and organ, written in 1952. The recital is sponsored by the Christchurch Organists’ Association. The James Diack singers were formed in 1968, to provide an opportunity for a small group of singers to work together, and to encourage appreciation and enjoyment of choral singing and music seldom heard in comparatively small communities such as Timaru. Several members of the group are soloists, and the founder and conductor, James Diack (a Timaru chemist), has been conductor of a church choir for 25 years. Members of the group are Noreen Daly, Florice Gordon, Lenora Little, and Rosslyn Riley, sopranos; Jessie Earl, Peg Hawkey, and Cecily Liddell, contraltos; lan Diack, lan Farr, and Colin Kilgour, tenors; and John Hargreaves, Noel Hawkey, and Jim Winnington, basses. The accompanist is Margaret Maconie, organist of the Trinity Presbyterian Church, Timaru.

Patricia Stuart has appeared as soloist in oratorio and recitals, and gives regular radio broadcasts. A teacher of singing in Timaru, she is a fellow of Trinity College

and holds an L.R.S.M. diploma. She is the daughter of another singing teacher and well-known tenor soloist, Leslie Dailey, of Invercargill. John Middleton, who is assistant manager of the Timaru branch of the Bank of New Zealand, has been a church organist since 1945. He is now responsible for the music at St John’s Anglican Church, Highfield.