The Hadley Court Singers

Music at Paxton: St Cuthbert’s Church,  Norham, 18/07/2026

The Hadley Court Singers

We slipped over the old bridge over the River Tweed into Northumberland, to Norham, for my first concert in this year’s Music at Paxton festival.  In the superb Romanesque Church of St Columba, a very decent audience was treated to a fascinating programme of a cappella Music, given by the Hadley Court Singers under the direction of Kit Hobkirk. Introduced by the vicar and then the festival director,  Angus Smith, the Singers packed an eclectic mixture of late Renaissance and early 20th century English music into an hour's recital.

Built around 1165, by the same architect who built Durham Cathedral, this was a perfect venue to listen to choral music. Readers may recall that my most recent review was of the fabulous Tallis Scholars in the East Neuk Festival,  one of the finest vocal ensembles in the world.  Now, with the best will in the world,  no-one would attempt to compare this amateur choir from Haddington with the Tallis Scholars, but such was their enthusiasm and such was the superhuman and committed direction of Kit Hobkirk, that the end result was a performance of real passion and deep artistry, which thrilled the knowledgeable audience in Norham. 

Admittedly,  the first piece, Palestrina's sublime double choir Stabat Mater, had its dodgy moments, but after that less than perfect start, the performers settled into the warm acoustic and delivered bold and passionate renditions of music by Palestrina,  Gesualdo,  Parry and Stamford, with a gentle coda by Arthur Sullivan.

The informative and witty introductions by Mr Hobkirk explained that the style of the Renaissance pieces was dictated by the liturgical decisions of the Council of Trent in 1545 in response to the Lutheran Reformation, and the late Victorian and Edwardian music was largely in response to the Oxford Movement, reasserting the Catholic and apostolic heritage of the Anglican Church.

Highlights for me were the exquisite late Palestrina motet, Sicut Cervus, and Carlo Gesualdo's magnificent and crazy, O Vos Omnes. I initially feared for the choir as they attempted the chromatic outrageousness of the Gesualdo, a piece I remember causing minor heart palpitations when we tried to sing it as undergraduates in St Andrews. However,  the Hadley Court Singers had obviously put in a lot of work, and the result was terrific.

It was clear, nonetheless,  that their forte was the more approachable polyphony of Parry and Stamford, and I was very impressed by their performances of several motets and part songs by those quintessentially English composers.

Here, I must highlight the committed and enthusiastic conducting of Mr Hobkirk who has only been working with the singers for less than a year. One could see the devotion and energy of the singers' responses to his direction, and the wide-eyed dedication clearly in evidence was wonderful to see and hear. 

The Hadley Court Singers have been going since 1978, and take their name from Hadley Court near Haddington, where they first rehearsed. Congratulations are due to Music at Paxton for trusting the Singers with a festival appearance and to the Singers themselves for a committed and enjoyable performance.