SD members won particular praise last November for their performance of Verdi's Requiem in Guildford Cathedral. Extracts from the subsequent review read:
 
"The combined choirs of Vivace Chorus, the Freiburg Bachchor, and Romsey Choral Society, four excellent soloists and the Brandenburg Sinfonia under the baton of Jeremy Backhouse ensured that...we had forces capable of providing all that Verdi could have required...

Although a Requiem mass, this is not a work to be contained within church worship. It is operatic in concept and needs soloists who can live their music in a way not usually found or needed in the performance of most sacred works. Soprano Claire Seaton, Mezzo-soprano Susanna Spicer, Tenor Andrew Mackenzie-Wicks and Bass Michael Bundy were an exceptionally well-balanced quartet, with well-blended ensemble singing. The touching quality of the solo tenor's "Ingemisco" and his beautiful shaping of the "Hostias", the sonorous tones and excellent diction of Michael Bundy, the burnished colour of Susanna Spicer's mezzo and the soprano mezzo unison singing in the "Agnus dei" entry for the "Recordare" were only some of the special solo offerings, but no praise can be too high for the superb singing throughout of the soprano, Claire Seaton. Seemingly effortlessly, she soared over chorus and orchestra where necessary, blended with the other soloists in ensemble and treated us to limpid high notes and breathtaking pianissimo singing... "

The same four will be singing the work again in the autumn of 2009: on 31 October in Portsmouth's Guildhall, conducted by Jonathan Willcocks, and on 7 November in Leamington Spa, conducted by Nigel Stark.

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