With a shuttle from the airport hotel at 7am and easy checkin and processing through security we get to breakfast and our flight to Heathrow with minimal effort and I sleep all the way to London.

Thanks to our kind Oyster card donors we get on the Picadilly Line to Hammersmith and change for the District Line to Tower Hill equally painlessly. Following our luggage delay of the past week a laundromat is our most urgent business if looking presentable for concerts and conferences is an option. A couple of streets and a park away we set our washing turning and find The Dog and Truck. The World Cup come on England flags are still up but Ascot is the hot news today.

Our task for the afternoon is to find Christ Church, Spitalfields where we have booked to hear the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge directed  by Graham Ross as part of their music festival (thanks to the heads up on Facebook a week earlier).

Their Ascension and Pentecost programme includes plenty of special favorites, four premieres, a smattering of composers and those responsible for commissioning works in the audience, plus one Australian work (for anyone required to catalogue this concert according to ABC-FM rules).

Philips Ascendit Deus
Hassler Omnes gentes, plaudite
Finzi God is gone up
Brett Dean New work (London premiere)
Martin Credo from Mass for double choir
Vaughan Williams O clap your hands
Patrick Gowers Viri Galilaei
Stanford Caelos ascendit hodie
Gibbons O clap your hands together
Nico Muhly Let all the world in every corner sing (London premiere)
Graham Ross Ascendo ad patrem (world premiere)
Giles Swayne God is gone up (London premiere)
Judith Weir Ascending into heaven
Tallis Loquebantur variis linguis
Grieg Whitsun Hymn
Grayston Ives Listen sweet dove
Harvey Come, Holy Ghost
Elgar The Spirit of the Lord is upon me

Thanks to a pre-concert tips email from the Spitalfields folk we knew to book the post-concert fixed menu deal at the nearby English Restaurant who catered for us very well despite being somewhat later than expected given the very long concert programme.

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