CHARLES WOOD CONFERENCE
This year marks the centenary of the death of Charles Wood (1866-1926), Precentor and Director of College Music at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and later Professor of Music at Cambridge University in succession to Stanford. He also taught at the Royal College of Music in London, where he had a formative influence on the musical development of the younger generation of English composers including Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Herbert Howells, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Michael Tippett.
Wood was himself a significant composer. He wrote extensively for the Anglican church service, including repertoire intended originally for use in the College Chapel, and also composed solo and part-songs, instrumental chamber music, cantatas and organ music, and published collections of folk songs, carols and hymns.
Charles Wood Commemoration Conference
We are sorry to announce that the Charles Wood conference at Gonville & Caius College, announced earlier this year to be held on Saturday 31 October, has had to be cancelled owing to a lack of bookings. The conference would have incurred a significant cost, and it was decided with regret by the promoters that the likely attendance would not justify this.
Those who have booked tickets will be reimbursed shortly.
However, the London Chamber Ensemble (Madeleine Mitchell, Violin and Director), who were to have taken part in the conference, will now be giving a lunchtime concert in the College on the same date (Saturday 31 October) beginning at 1.00 pm in the Bateman Auditorium (accessed via the Porters' Lodge in Trinity Street). The Ensemble has recently recorded several of Charles Wood's string quartets for SOMM Recordings. Andrew Achenbach, writing in the Gramophone commented, 'Wood could not wish for more persuasive advocates of his music than the London Chamber Ensemble'. At Caius they will perform the Quartet in E flat major (Harrogate), and No. 5 in F major. Entrance is free, and there will be a retiring collection. All will be welcome.
