Led by the passionate Steve Sargent, the Free Radicals are a unique, unaccompanied choral group from Petersfield, performing to celebrate music and benefit charities. This talented ensemble brings new life to classic pieces with their “Radical” approach — no Christmas carols, only Advent music, and innovative renditions of well-loved songs. Catch them on 17 November at St. Mary’s Church for an Evensong, and on 28 November for an Advent concert at St. Peter’s Church. Every concert is free, so everyone can enjoy these incredible performances and support a good cause.
The Free Radicals is a group of 8 to 12 singers based in Petersfield that sings entirely without accompaniment. The group sings mainly for its own enjoyment, but also puts on concerts three or four times each year, always for charities or in church services. Steve Sargent is its leader and is conversation with Simon O’Hea.
Simon
Tell me a bit about yourself.
Steve
I am an amateur musician, mainly self-taught, and what I love doing most is singing. I have also played trumpet since I was 11 and I run a brass quintet, but the singing has become more important than the brass these days. I joined a choir when I was about 16 and I have enjoyed singing ever since.
Simon
Tell me how the group was formed.
Steve
I was in a choir in Petersfield for a long time, and then in 2007 formed my own choral group, the Free Radicals, which has around 12 singers. Everything has become more and more enjoyable as the time goes on, though it’s not without its stresses, of course. But you know, that’s part of the deal.
Simon
What music does the group like to sing?
Steve
We do some really lovely things now. Our main two fixtures of the year are Advent and Lent. Lent is possibly the best spot because there’s so much really lovely music which has been written for the time leading up to Good Friday. Of course in the Christian calendar, it’s the time for high drama and emotion, and so this prompted many composers throughout the centuries to write really good music.
And what about Advent? The main thing is that it’s not Christmas! So much Christmas music is bandied around months before Christmas. And as an amateur musician, I really got fed up with singing and playing the same carols over and over again. So, the Free Radicals don’t do Christmas; we only do Advent, in which there are no Christmas carols and music is all about the expectation of Christmas.
We are called the Free Radicals because everything we do is a little bit unusual and also because the original reason that we got together is because we broke away from a much more established and traditional kind of choir.
We’re always looking for some different angle on everything and we sing everything without accompaniment because that’s how you can best hear the richness of the harmonies. We often sing ‘one song to the tune of another’, so as to shed new light on it or give it a new lease of life.
One example is Adam Lay y Bounden. If you look closely at what’s available, there are many other versions of famous carols like that. It’s the same with There is no Rose of such Virtue. Everybody has written a version of one of those, including me, so we’re going to sing my version this year.
Last year, we sang the same song as set by the father of one of our choir members, and of course there are dozens of other versions, too. So we always hope that people will enjoy hearing a well-know song in a new and original light.
In this next concert we also have The Angel Gabriel written by one of our members, a professional viola player, who has written it for baritone solo and choir.
We are quite keen to show that there are lots of other things which are not mainstream, but which are equally good or possibly better, which might otherwise never see the light of day.
Simon
Very good. Tell me about your singers. How have you recruited them? What standards are you expecting of them? Obviously they need to be able to sing and hold their own line without a piano. I guess a sense of fun helps?
Steve
All of that! They’re all people I’ve come across via friends or friends of friends – because it’s not an easy thing to deal with if one person is not regularly available or not up to the mark.
And in a larger choir, your aim is not to be heard above the rest of the chorus. By contrast, in an 8-part choir everything you do is important, so each person’s part needs to be heard. So yes, it’s a different kind of singing. In a big choir, you can miss out a bit if you’re unsure, but here there is no hiding-place. That tension brings big rewards for the singers, and hopefully for the audience, too. We don’t have a big turnover of people. While the music is in eight parts, we need to have around twelve people to allow for absences. But the ideal size is eight.
Simon
OK, so tell me about what’s coming up next.
Steve
We’re doing an Evensong in St Mary’s Church in Liss on Sunday 17 November at 5.30pm. Once again, we’re looking to provide some unusual repertoire. So we have Purcell for the Canticles, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. The sung prayers for Preces and Responses was written by Jason Smart in the 1970s and were used in St George’s Chapel in Windsor. They are modern but not crazy or inaccessible. We’re always looking to introduce people to new things which are good. And then we’ve got some really nice hymns to sing, a famous choral anthem by William Harris and a brand new one by Ben Ponniah.
And then the bigger event is the Advent concert at Saint Peter’s Church in Petersfield on Thursday 28 November at 7.30pm. It will be free to get in, with a retiring collection, and there’s a set of 12 songs and maybe 4 readings to break up the singing. It’s a lovely thing to go to, because it’s a bit like a meditation: there are no introductions and no applause, except possibly at the end. You can simply pick up the messages from the songs in the written programme. People can approach this event simply in a contemplative sort of way. Or maybe they just like the music. You don’t have to be religious to understand or to appreciate it. It is just good music. Like so many things we do, it’s just a bit Radical.
Simon
Very good. And tell me about what’s coming up after that concert.
Steve
We have a free concert on Saturday 1 March, also in St Peter’s, which is a non-religious concert together with the Winchester Flute Choir. It’s called ‘Around the World in 80 Minutes’. The flutes include normal flutes plus alto flutes and bass flutes. Then on the Wednesday before Easter, on 16 April, we have the Lent meditation. That is the event that we enjoy the most, because of the huge amount of luscious music we can choose from.
So I’m always willing to do more and more new things that people never heard before. We’ve been doing the Lent Meditation since about 2008. We love the richness of the repertoire, and every year it just keeps getting better.
Everything we do is free to enter, but people pay very generously as they leave – because they enjoyed it. This way, everybody can come and hear the music even if they can’t afford to buy a ticket. Our music is not just for the well-off! It’s Radical.
