This March, Salisbury Chamber Chorus is performing Mozart’s famous Requiem, both his final piece, and also one of his most familiar. In addition, the Salisbury-based choir will be performing four choruses from Mozart’s opera Idomeneo; less well-known, but perfect curtain raisers.

For this concert the Chorus will be joined by the Nova Foresta Classical players, a chamber orchestra from, as the name suggests, the New Forest. Nova, under the artistic directorship of Philip Daish-Handy has been fast gaining wide recognition as a dynamic new musical force, frequently performing to packed venues across the South.It should be the perfect combination of smaller groups with large aspirations.

Salisbury Chamber Chorus has gained a reputation from singing some fairly epic pieces, including programmes of opera by Puccini, Wagner and others, in a more European operatic style than a traditional English choral one, and its members comprise a number of gifted amateurs and semi-professionals who are also happy to sing solo. Indeed, the soloists for this concert will all be members of the Chorus.

The concert is conducted by Simon McEnery, himself no stranger to the operatic stage: as a tenor he has sung at Covent Garden and opera houses around Europe. Of the Mozart Requiem he says: “This is a piece I’ve wanted us to do for a while. It lends itself to a more dramatic sound. A lot of people associate it with the movie Amadeus, in which it was used with an incredible amount of emotional power. I think you can hear in it something of Mozart’s desperate desire for life at a time when his was drawing to its premature close. It’s a gripping piece, every bit as dramatic as one of his operas, but also full of pathos and yearning.”

The concert is taking place at St Thomas’s Church, Salisbury, on Sunday 12 March. The concert will be repeated the following Saturday, 18 March, at St Peter’s, Stockbridge, in association with Stockbridge Music.