RIPON Choral Society'S concert began with a presentation to John Dunford to mark his 20 years as its conductor.

Andrew Hill, chairman, paid tribute to his achievement in developing the choir's expertise and repertoire with (almost) limitless patience and good humour. A great conductor and choir trainer, Dunford had used his huge range of contacts to bring to Ripon excellent soloists, fine accompanists and challenging new works.

The wonderful ensemble performance with orchestra, soloists and choir working together brought the Creation to life. The work is long and the soloists have prolonged recitatives and arias punctuated by choral contributions.

Ronan Busfield (tenor) as Uriel and Henry Neil (bass) as Raphael combined the simplicity of the "reporting" recitatives with the lyrical music of the airs. The latter came close to bringing the house down with fleecy, meek and blee-ee-ee-eeting flocks. Laurie Ashworth, sometimes a little out-volumed, broke free with her soaring top Cs. Her airs were delightful, the description of the birds in creation simply enchanting.

The Orchestra D'Amici provides excellent support to the society and this performance owed much to the players' evident enjoyment. They accompanied the soloists with flair and great tonal restraint.

Individual colours for birds and beasts enabled individual instrumentalists to shine, and when a full sound was required, it was not lacking. Sometimes enthusiasm tipped the balance – but a minor quibble.

The opening chorus is arguably the greatest in choral music. The first bars were almost whispered with absolute clarity before the great chord on "light". From then on the choir excelled in dynamic range, the articulation of separate parts and final consonants.

They followed Dunford into some choruses at a heady pace, but kept it up with aplomb, especially in The Heavens are Telling and Achieved is the Glorious Work. The audience was swept along. Contrast this with the choir's sensitive accompanying in the interplay with the soloists in Part 3.

If asked for a suggestion, I might have requested even more exploiting of the choir's undoubted capacity for dramatic change in dynamics, but again, a quibble. Excellent musicianship brought added life to this well-loved musical treat.

Patrick Earle