DAVID CUFFY

The Ly­di­ans took an al­most full house of pa­trons on an up­lift­ing jour­ney of joy­ful mu­sic un­der the theme of four hearts at their con­cert, Christ­mas–A Sea­son of Love, which pre­miered a four-night run at Queen's Hall, St Ann's, on Thurs­day evening.The Bro­ken Heart and the Holy Heart, with ap­pro­pri­ate icons as stage back­drop, were the fea­ture of the open­ing half's themed se­lec­tions, and The Fes­tive Heart and The Joy­ful Heart, al­so with icon­ic im­ages as back­drop, show­cased mu­sic re­flec­tive of the themes on the play­bill's sec­ond seg­ment.

Spo­ken-word artiste Muham­mad Muwak­il nar­rat­ed his thought-pro­vok­ing com­po­si­tion Dis­trac­tions in a Sea­son of Love, grace­ful­ly in­ter­pret­ed by mem­bers of the Lit­tle Carib The­atre Dance Com­pa­ny, to open the pro­gramme. Fol­low­ing this, the full choir, ac­com­pa­nied by Ly­di­an Steel and un­der the ba­ton of Vic­tor Prescod, sang Sea­sons of Love, Ring the Bells and The Glo­rias of Christ­mas.

Muwak­il re­turned with Lou Lyons, as the Free­town Col­lec­tive, to gen­er­ate the first re­al thrill of the evening with their works Love In Tran­si­tion, Go, and Jerusalem. Their mu­sic and spo­ken-word pieces high­light dai­ly life strug­gles, the pow­er of love, and the ups and down of re­la­tion­ships.The Ly­di­an Men and Queen's Roy­al Col­lege (QRC) Chorale, in a first-time col­lab­o­ra­tion, then paid trib­ute to the Holy Heart, rep­re­sent­ed by an im­age of the Im­mac­u­late Heart of Mary.

The com­bi­na­tion of­fered Ar­cadelt's Ave Maria, af­ter which the chorale, con­duct­ed by Can­dice Caton, won loud ap­plause for its ver­sion of I Be­lieve, which in­clud­ed a quodli­bet with Ave Maria that was first pub­lished in 1972 by Shawnee Mu­sic, and is fre­quent­ly per­formed by choirs at Christ­mas time.

Soloist so­pra­no Naki­ta Gads­by of­fered a stun­ning take on the tra­di­tion­al Amer­i­can spir­i­tu­al He's Got the Whole World in his Hands, and vet­er­an Ly­di­an soloist so­pra­no Joanne Pyle used her pow­er­ful voice to give a pore-rais­ing ren­di­tion of O Holy Night that earned loud ac­claim.

High­light of the sec­ond seg­ment was the item ti­tled From Ed­die With Love, which fea­tured a so­lo per­for­mance by in­ter­na­tion­al­ly-ac­claimed tenor Ed­ward Cum­ber­batch, who has been tenor soloist in many choral works and per­formed the lead tenor roles in sev­er­al op­eras.

In his rich, pow­er­ful voice, Cum­ber­batch opened with Han­del's Com­fort Ye/Every Val­ley; teamed with so­pra­no Marielle Coop­er-Leach to ex­e­cute Jane Sher­berg's beau­ti­ful Christ­mas duet He Gave The Great­est Gift of All; raised the roof with Nes­sun Dor­ma, an aria from the opera Tu­ran­dot by Puc­ci­ni; and stirred emo­tions with Cra­dle in Beth­le­hem.