Music in Bosham reaches its final concert of the year this coming Sunday 30th November at 6pm. A reminder for you that this is the first time we’ve ever done a Music in Bosham event that is NOT on the first Sunday of the month. The dates didn’t quite coalesce with other Christmas commitments, plus this Sunday is Advent Sunday, so it is liturgically appropriate. I’m hoping it’s not going to become a regular occurrence though, and moving into 2026, we will be returning to our regular first Sunday of the month.
Given it is the final concert of the year, we will of course be performing Part 1 of Handel’s Messiah. I’m delighted to be joined by a trio of performers you may be familiar with if you’ve attended Music in Bosham recently. Amani Abu-El-Hawa (who performed for us earlier this month) will be singing the soprano arias, Jon Grave (who has performed at Bosham many times) will be singing tenor and Richard Barnes will be accompanying us all from the organ. I will be pulling triple duty as conductor, as well as both bass and alto (albeit an octave down) soloist.
We will have our usual afternoon workshop for anybody who wants to sing in the chorus from 3pm; please do get in touch if you would like to sing and haven’t let me know already. If you just want to come and listen, the performance will be at the usual 6pm, with a retiring collection afterwards. The runtime is usually around an hour.
A reminder also that our Come & Sing Messiah is changing from an annual event to a biennial event, so our next performance (God willing) won’t be until December 2027. If you’ve given this particular concert a miss in recent years (either as a singer or an audience member) with the logic that it’ll come back around in 12 months, this might be the year to pop along.
Music in Bosham will return for a brand new season in 2026, though the shape of the year will be a little different due to Easter falling on the first Sunday of April, but we’re making up for it with an extra concert in February (when we’d normally be on our winter break). Details of next year’s artists will hopefully be included in this Sunday’s programme, but if you’re a stickler for marking dates well in advance, our 2026 meetings are scheduled as follows:
NO CONCERT ON SUNDAY 4TH JANUARY (WINTER BREAK)
Sunday 1st February (Additional date)
Sunday 1st March
NO CONCERT ON SUNDAY 5TH APRIL (EASTER SUNDAY)
Sunday 3rd May
Sunday 7th June
NO CONCERT ON SUNDAY 5TH JULY (SUMMER BREAK)
Sunday 2nd August
Sunday 6th September
Sunday 4th October
Sunday 1st November
Sunday 6th December
Can I take this opportunity to thank you all for supporting Music in Bosham throughout 2025. We are so lucky to get such talented artists for our little concert series, and it has been incredibly gratifying to see them so well received by an attentive and appreciative audience. Our average attendance has continued to go up this year, and I hope that we can continue that trajectory, as well as the excellent standards of performance we have enjoyed this year, into 2026 and beyond.
Ben Lathbury
ben@chichester-piano.co.uk
