The Traveller in Lichfield

'The literary patchwork was fluently stitched together, and Roth's score, which had both Brittenesque moments, and highly accessible anthem-like choral writing, nicely varied the pace'. So wrote Andrew Clements in today's Guardian of the last of the performances of Alec Roth's The Traveller which we have been giving at the festivals in Salisbury, Chelsea and Lichfield.

For the texts, Vikram Seth wrote six new poems and translated some 25 Indian texts from a rich variety of traditions and languages, including Sanskrit, Pali, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, and Tamil. Here is an extract:

Child of son, of daughter,
Tombed and wombed in water,
Flesh to bind and bound me,
Darkness all around me,
Neither seen nor seeing,
Being and not being,
In my world's cessation
Lies my re-creation.
© Vikram Seth

Mark Padmore was the tenor soloist, in what was the last concert project of our season. He joins us again in the first tour of next season in October, in an enticing project with Katie Mitchell: Night Music.

The Traveller

Local TV news coverage in Salisbury at the time of the premiere of The Traveller by Alec Roth and Vikram Seth can be seen here (you might need to load the clip and then play it again). The next performance is at the Lichfield Festival on 8 July.

Lichfield Festival

There is a further chance to hear our Traveller project - with Mark Padmore, and featuring the new work by Alec Roth to Vikram Seth texts - at the Lichfield Festival on 8 July. You might also like to read the festival director's blog. There are some great links in his 19 June entry to material on and about Vikram Seth, including some video interviews.