Tenebrae

Happy New Year! Our first commission for 2009 is Tenebrae by Ryan Wigglesworth, which receives its premiere in Krakow on Sunday week, before touring to Cambridge, London, Birmingham and Norwich. It has been commissioned with funds from Cambridge and is one of the first events marking the University's 800th anniversary.

Ryan has written: 'Tenebrae is familiar as the Christian service which takes place on the three consecutive evenings of Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday. The service is characterized by the gradual extinguishing of fifteen candles, interspersed with the reading or chanting of psalms. As the close of the service, after the last remaining lit candle has been put out and Psalm 22 concluded, the congregation makes its way out of the church in darkness.

Whilst certain aspects of this ritual inform my piece, it is perhaps the more literal sense of the word tenebrae – ‘shadows’ – that provides the work’s generative idea. Shadows, only most obviously appearing in the guise of string tremolandi or woodwind fluttering, are cast in various ways around principal melodic figures and lines (at the opening provided by the cor anglais). These shadows lengthen and recede, double and transform, divide and combine, and at times even proceed to develop along their own independent paths.'

Messiah in London

St. John's, Smith Square - situated in the heart of Westminster - is one of the masterpieces of the English Baroque, and a fine setting for our performances of Messiah with Polyphony on 21, 22 and 23 December.

"Just to come across it in that quiet square is an event. To enjoy its spaces, to listen to fine music, is an experience not to be matched in conventional halls..."
Sir Hugh Casson

Messiah moves on to Ely

Our next performance of Messiah with Polyphony takes place on Thursday evening under the Octagon in Ely Cathedral. I await some objective opinions, but the tour got off to a tremendous start in Norwich last night at the Theatre Royal: sold out! The new acoustic system there - which we first tried at our Night Music project in October - worked well with the chamber choir steeply raked behind the orchestra (for a fuller description of how this works, follow the links in On An Overgrown Path).
Next week's performances are at St John's Smith Square in London on 21, 22 and 23 December. Book here: not many tickets remaining, I gather.

Poznan concert

Our concert in Poznan went pretty well last night, I gather: more news when the team get home. In the meantime, here's a short video on YouTube, with music by Vivaldi and Piazzolla, and some background from a Greenpeace staffer and our leader Jacqueline Shave.

Britten Sinfonia in Poznan

Britten Sinfonia is off to Poznan this week for a concert at the UN Climate Change Conference. Presented in collaboration with Greenpeace, it features violinist Pekka Kuusisto in a programme which intersperses Vivaldi's Four Seasons with Astor Piazzolla's Seasons in Buenos Aires. The concert is free and takes place in Plac Wolnosci on Tuesday evening.

Richard Hickox and British music

To my college last night for Evensong. Queens' dedicated this service to Richard Hickox, who died at the weekend. Richard was Organ Scholar in 1967-70 and an Honorary Fellow since 1996, until his untimely death at the weekend. Sir David Willcocks directed the choir in a sequence of works by some of the British composers whom Hickox championed: William Harris, Henry Balfour Gardiner and John Tavener. I got to know Richard post-Queens' when his City of London Sinfonia first started doing concert series at the Barbican and I managed the marketing. Richard Morrison's Times article encapsulates his career and Fiona Shaw talks of his work on the ENO production of Vaughan Williams' Riders to the Sea which he was to conduct, opening tonight.
Richard always supported the commitment of orchestras such as ours to young composers, and so, on a happier note, I must remind you that our Britten Sinfonia at Lunch series begins again in Krakow on Sunday, before moving on to Cambridge, London, Birmingham and Norwich. The featured British composers are Colin Matthews and Charlotte Bray.

Today's Classic FM Arts Daily features Britten Sinfonia

David Butcher discusses our At Lunch series and our partnership with Cambridge University Press with Bob Jones on today's Classic FM Arts Daily podcast.