Hear Puccini’s delightful mass at remembrance concert in Haywards Heath

For nearly twenty years the Mid-Sussex Remembrance Concert has been promoted by Ardingly Choral Society.

This year it will take place in the Dolphin Centre, Haywards Heath, on Sunday, November 8, at 7.30pm in conjunction with Ardingly Prep School Choir and Mid-Sussex Sinfonia.

The soloists will be tenor Lawrence Olsworth-Peter, Baritone Mike Christie and soprano Olivia Bell.

All have strong associations with the area and may well be known to many in West Sussex.

The major work of the evening will be Puccini’s delightful but vigorous Messa di Gloria.

This setting of the mass explores all the most rewarding choral styles of the early 20th century (Puccini wrote the Messa di Gloria while still a student aged 18) and also displays both the tenor and baritone soloists in what was to become Puccini’s extraordinarily brilliant operatic technique.

The concert always starts with Robert Hammersley’s moving Remembrance in which the children’s choir plays an emotionally powerful role.