Music News - March 2026 

March will be a music-filled month at St Mary’s, starting with the Service of Light on the 8th, when we shall give thanks for the newly installed lighting, of which we have already had tantalising glimpses over the Christmas period. The service will be accompanied by a brass group and the choir will be performing the Three Spark Motets, music by Brian Moles and texts by Paula Griffiths. The motets are accompanied by organ and a solo euphonium and are a virtuosic test for the choir and players alike. Well worth a listen - and refreshments will be served after the service. As well as the motets, George Dyson’s Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in D major has to be one of the most uplifting and joyous settings in existence: it really will be a musical delight and a fitting tribute and welcome to the new lighting system.

The 15th March is Mothering Sunday and the Junior Choir and Joyful Noise will be delighting us with their enthusiasm and talent. Joyful Noise have started rehearsals with Helen Counsell, who is already achieving great things with them.

On the 29th at 6.30pm we have a Devotional Offering from the choir, at which they will perform Mozart’s Requiem. Mozart departed this world before he finished the Requiem but left instructions with his pupil and amanuensis, Franz Zavier Süssmayr, who completed the work in his absence. The Sanctus is all Süssmayr’s work as is the opening of the Agnus Dei, but Süssmayr returned wisely to the fugal Kyrie to complete the Mass and it is one of Mozart’s darkest and most foreboding in the composer’s ‘tragic’ key of D minor. Please do come and support the performers: it promises to be a memorable evening.

Philip Sunderland