Music for a Late Summer's Evening

Join us for a recital in St Paul's Chapel by Richard Barnes on Keyboard and Mark Hartt-Palmer on Violin entitled 'Music for a Late Summer's Evening', including music by Schubert, Fauré, Dvorak, Strauss and Elgar.

This concert is being held to raise money for the refurbishment of the Casson Organ within the Chapel. The organ was donated by Vere the 9th Earl of Bessborough in 1926 of memory of his mother, Blanche, the wife of the 8th Earl. Despite careful maintenance over many years, this historically significant instrument is no longer able to play its full part in the rich life of the Chapel.  

It now needs complete refurbishment to restore it to its former glory and we warmly invite your generous support. This work is the first phase of a wider restoration of this fine Grade I Listed Chapel, helping to preserve it for future generations.

Target: £40,000

Funds raised so far: £17,000

Stansted Park Foundation: £12,000

Donations: £5,000

Funds to be raised: £23,000

Grants to be applied for: £12,000

Further donations required: £11,000

Richard Barnes gained his early musical training as a Chorister at Westminster Abbey and a Choral Scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, where he graduated with an honours degree in music.  Since that time he has enjoyed a varied career as singer, choral conductor, organist, accompanist and lecturer.  He frequently sang with the Choirs of Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral, before becoming a Professor of Harmony and Aural at the Royal Academy of Music and conductor of the Renaissance Singers of London.    He settled in Chichester in 1982 in order to develop his publishing company Cathedral Music Ltd – one of its publications was sung at the King’s Coronation in 2023.

As a keyboard player, Richard obtained his Associateship Diploma from the Royal College of Organists while still at school. For some years he was Organist successively at Holy Trinity, Brompton and Dorchester Abbey, whose renowned Festival he directed for several years.  He has given recitals and accompanied services and concerts at Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral, and further afield in venues such as the Ravenna Basilica, the Hungarian Coronation Matyas-Church in Budapest, and many Cathedrals, including Chartres, Dubrovnik, Valletta and Lisbon, while he is also in demand internationally as a continuo player and accompanist.  Between 1995 & 2019 he was accompanist to the Chichester Singers, with whom he made a CD including Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, and also toured all over Europe. He is now Organist to the Chapel here in Stansted Park.

Mark Hartt-Palmer first studied the violin with Samuel Coates, subsequently continuing under Frances Mason at the Royal College of Music.  Since then he has performed regularly both as a soloist and recitalist.  He has made many concerto appearances with the Chichester Symphony Orchestra - in the 2007 Chichester Festivities he performed the newly rediscovered concerto by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and two further performances he was invited to give in Canada were its premières there.  

More recently he has given performances with the Orchestra of the Dvořák, Elgar, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky Concertos. In 2013 he became the Orchestra’s Musical Director, a position from which he has recently retired after a successful tenure.

Mark is now fully occupied as Artistic Director of CD recording company Willowhayne Records. Their rapidly expanding programme of releases has been well received by the critics, praised both for the boldness of their programme planning and for their sound quality. A selection of Willowhayne CDs will be available this evening.