Exeter Philharmonic Choir dedicates 'Requiem' concert to former patron

Exeter Philharmonic Choir will perform its next concert - Verdi’s Requiem - on the 18th of March in memory of the late Sir Neville Marriner, who died in October last year, aged 92.

Sir Neville became Honorary Patron of the Choir in 1995. The following year, he and Lady Molly attended a concert on the occasion of the Choir's 150th Anniversary performance - after which he praised the singing of Handel’s Messiah in glowing terms.

Sir Neville’s last contact with Exeter Philharmonic Choir was in September last year when he sent an affectionate tribute for inclusion in the programme to celebrate the start of its170th Anniversary Season. Appropriately, the work was Handel’s Messiah.

On Saturday 18th March, the Choir will remember Sir Neville as it performs Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem at Exeter Cathedral in collaboration with Exeter Philharmonic Orchestra. 

The Choir last sang Verdi's masterwork, also known as the Requiem Mass, in April 2004 during Andrew Millington’s first season as Musical Director. Fittingly, the performance in March will mark his last season and his penultimate concert before leaving the post in the summer.

Verdi’s choral ‘blockbuster’ is an opera in all but name. It was composed as a memorial to one of Verdi’s heroes - Italian poet, playwright and novelist Alessandro Manzoni, who died in 1873. Verdi conducted the premiere in Milan, to rapturous applause, on the first anniversary of Manzoni’s death.

The concert is sponsored by Renaissance Villages, the developer of Exeter’s new Millbrook Village retirement community on Topsham Road.