CD celebrates Coventry’s legends

Composer Colin Touchin, founder of the city-based Spires Music, chose medieval themes for the pieces, which were each first performed at Holy Trinity church in the city centre.

St George of Coventry, premiered in 2010, is a nine-minute setting for chorus and orchestra of the Coventry legends surrounding St George.

The Coventry Suite, first performed earlier this year, is a 14-minute piece for symphony orchestra, reflecting the history of the city’s medieval town walls and gates.

And Choose the Light, composed and performed for this year’s Coventry Mysteries Week festival in June, is a 33-minute choral and orchestral setting of words written by children from five Coventry schools as a reaction to the famous Doom, or Last Judgement, painting in Holy Trinity.

The music was professionally recorded last month by Worcestershire-based Dinmore Records, using singers and musicians from Spires Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, which brings together professional and top amateur musicians from Coventry and Warwickshire and the wider region.

Copies are available, for a suggested price of £10, at the church, at Coventry tourist information centre, at Presto Music in Leamington and online through Amazon.