PRESS RELEASE
New Music at Gloucester Three Choirs Festival 23 – 30 July 2016 A new ‘War Passion’ by Philip Lancaster, an orchestral fantasia by Joseph Phibbs, a song cycle by Matthew Martin, a set of songs for children’s voices with the chimes of Gloucester Cathedral and several liturgical pieces are among the new works to be performed at this year’s Three Choirs Festival, which takes place in Gloucester 23 – 30 July. The listing below is followed by further information and quotes LISTING
Sunday 24 July Neil Cox A Gloucestershire Mass Festival Eucharist, Gloucester Cathedral Choir, Christopher Allsop, organ, Adrian Partington, conductor, Gloucester Cathedral Philip Lancaster War Passion St Cecilia Singers, The Bristol Ensemble, Jonathan Hope, conductor, Cirencester Parish Church world premiere Tuesday 26 July Thomas Johnson Four Songs for the End of Wars Children’s Choir with the Chimes of Gloucester Cathedral, Rachel Bowen, conductor, Jonathan MacKechnie-­‐
Jarvis, chimes programmer, College Green, Gloucester Cathedral world premiere Wednesday 27 July Matthew Martin Sonnets of Petrarch Marcus Farnsworth, baritone, James Baillieu, piano, St Barnabas Church, Tuffley, Gloucester world premiere Ian King The Gloucester Service Three Cathedral Choirs, Jonathan Hope, organ, Adrian Partington, conductor, Gloucester Cathedral broadcast premiere of festival commission Thursday 28 July Joshua Pacey Mary’s Lullaby St Cecilia Singers, Jonathan Hope, conductor, Gloucester Cathedral world premiere of winning anthem in John Sanders Society Choral Composition Competition 1 Friday 29 July David Bednall Gloria and Nunc dimittis Three Cathedral Choirs, Jonathan Hope, organ, Peter Nardone, conductor, Gloucester Cathedral Joseph Phibbs Memento Musica Philharmonia Orchestra, Adrian Partington, conductor, Gloucester Cathedral world premiere of festival commission Full programme details for Gloucester Three Choirs Festival can be found on the
festival website. www.3Choirs.org
Booking is open online and via the Ticket Office: 01452 768928
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Artistic Director Adrian Partington is available for interview.
More information and a selection of high-resolution images from:
Clare Stevens Head of Communications Three Choirs Festival 7c College Green
Gloucester GL1 2LX
[email protected] 01452 768935 (office) 07968 367079 (mobile)
FURTHER INFORMATION
SUNDAY 24 JULY Neil Cox A Gloucestershire Mass Festival Eucharist, Gloucester Cathedral Choir, Christopher Allsop, organ, Adrian Partington, conductor, Gloucester Cathedral Neil Cox’s A Gloucestershire Mass was first performed in Gloucester Cathedral in February, a gift to the cathedral choir and its director, Adrian Partington, from Peter Cottingham, operations director of the Three Choirs Festival. It will be reprised during the Festival Eucharist at 10.15 am on 24 July. It is a companion piece to the Evening Canticles (Magnificat and Nunc dimittis) previously written by Cox for Gloucester Cathedral, and develops some of the same themes, presenting them in the form of a French organ mass. Neil Cox, Director of Chapel Music at Lancing College, Sussex, has also written a motet for Gloucester Cathedral, ‘Keep me as the apple of an eye’, which has entered the choral repertoire. Adrian Partington said: ‘Neil Cox, whom I have known for forty years, is increasingly well known as a church music composer of talent and imagination. His style, somewhat neo-­‐Howellsian, fertilised by Neil’s obvious love for the style of the twentieth-­‐century French organ school, lends itself wonderfully to performance in the matchlessly-­‐beautiful acoustic of Gloucester Cathedral, with its seemingly endless resonance. Set to the most up-­‐to-­‐date of the liturgical Mass texts, his Gloucestershire Mass is a work of tremendous energy with a spectacular organ part.’ 2 Philip Lancaster War Passion St Cecilia Singers, The Bristol Ensemble, Jonathan Hope, conductor, Cirencester Parish Church world premiere War Passion by Philip Lancaster is a chamber oratorio in four movements. It will be premiered by the St Cecilia Singers and the Bristol Ensemble, conducted by Jonathan Hope, in Cirencester Parish Church at 3.30 pm on 24 July. The performance is supported by the Finzi Trust, the Jerusalem Trust and John Lawrence. The work is a telling of the Passion story interspersed with words by nine First World War poets, offering both a commentary on the Passion and a parallel narrative recounting the experience and sacrifice of that war. Philip Lancaster writes: ‘Shortly before Holy Week 2013 it struck me that there was some remarkable strength in the parallels between some of the poems of the war with the story and imagery of the Passion, and that it might be possible to forge the two together in a way that would both illustrate the story of Christ and also parallel his sacrifice for the redemption of Mankind with the sacrifice of soldiers in that war for not dissimilar ends. As I scoured the great quantity of poetry written during that war, I found some striking poems that complemented and enhanced the narrative whilst also telling of the war itself. So the War Passion was born. I later encountered two things that reinforced my belief in the nature of this combination. Firstly, the opening two lines of a poem by Rudyard Kipling, which have become an epigraph for the work: The garden of Gethsemane/In Picardy it was... Secondly, six months or so into the project I learned of a story that was doing the rounds amongst soldiers during the war of a soldier who had been crucified by the Germans, fixed in the crucified stance to a barn door with bayonets. Later research found this story to be true. A Canadian soldier, Sgt. Harry Band was reportedly the victim, and his crucifixion was depicted powerfully in a sculpture in 1918 by the British artist Francis Derwent Wood. A photograph of part of this sculpture is to form the cover of the score of War Passion. The work is set for four soloists, chamber choir and 13-­‐piece ensemble. The soloists take on roles within the work: Soprano: Commentator Contralto: Narrator Tenor: Christ/The Soldier (a single figure, embodiment of both) Baritone: Commentator; High Priest; Pilate; Second Soldier TUESDAY 26 JULY Thomas Johnson Four Songs for the End of Wars Children’s Choir with the Chimes of Gloucester Cathedral, Rachel Bowen, conductor, Jonathan MacKechnie-­‐
Jarvis, chimes programmer, College Green, Gloucester Cathedral world premiere Thomas Johnson’s Four Songs for the End of Wars for children’s choir and the bells of Gloucester Cathedral will be premiered outdoors in front of the cathedral at around 12.30 pm on Tuesday 26 July. The restored chiming mechanism for the bells will be programmed with the help of the cathedral’s honorary chimekeeper, Jonathan MacKechnie-­‐Jarvis, and the children’s choir will be directed by Rachel 3 Bowen. The performance will follow a concert by Gloucestershire County Youth Choir and Orchestra which includes Johnson’s earlier work Street of Bugles. Thomas Johnson writes: ‘When the Three Choirs Festival commissioned me to write a piece of music for the Gloucester Cathedral bells and a children’s choir, they described it as an ‘encore’ to my oratorio Street of Bugles. I was keen to find a way of joining up the two pieces thematically; Street of Bugles charts the progress of a group of youngsters through the First World War, so my new commission needed to follow on from this. The story told in the oratorio ends with the soldiers’ homecoming to a new world of peace. There are many reports of Armistice Day 1918 being filled with the sound of church bells ringing – ‘bells burst forth with joy’ (Daily Mirror 1918) – and there was my subject: the end of wars. ‘Church bells broadcast news, they announce, they summon. This got me thinking about sound borne on the wind. So my four songs are West Wind, East Wind, South Wind, and North Wind. The four winds carry the children’s voices, the pealing bells, and their message of peace, through the world. ‘This has been a fascinating project and I’m indebted to Jonathan MacKechnie-­‐
Jarvis whose tireless enthusiasm for the cathedral chimes has brought them back to life. The last time a new tune was written for the Gloucester Cathedral bells was in the 1760s and it’s a great honour to be the first person in nearly 400 years to compose for them. The last person to write for them was an 18th-­‐century music director for the Three Choirs Festival, so there is a wonderful continuity to the project.’ WEDNESDAY 27 JULY Matthew Martin Sonnets of Petrarch Marcus Farnsworth, baritone, James Baillieu, piano, St Barnabas Church, Tuffley, Gloucester world premiere Matthew Martin, Director of Music of Keble College, Oxford, has set three Sonnets of Petrarch which will receive their world premiere in St Barnabas Church, Tuffley, Gloucester on Wednesday 27 July at 2.45 pm, performed by baritone Marcus Farnsworth and pianist James Baillieu. The recital is entitled ‘Gloucester Lads’ and features song cycles by Ivor Gurney, a former chorister of Gloucester cathedral, and Gerald Finzi, who lived for some years at Painswick, Gloucestershire, in addition to the new work by Matthew Martin, who is a former pupil of Dean Close School, Cheltenham, and has been familiar with Gloucester Cathedral and its organ since boyhood. An experienced choral composer, Martin has written for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, The Cardinall’s Musick, Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, for the St Cecilia Service at St Paul’s Cathedral and the St Endellion Festival among others. He has been published by OUP and Novello and is now with Faber Music. He won New College Oxford’s composition 4 competition jointly with Tarik O’Regan in 2000 and in 2013 won the liturgical category of the British Composer Awards. A note on his Sonnets of Petrarch is in preparation and texts can be supplied on request. Ian King The Gloucester Service Three Cathedral Choirs, Jonathan Hope, organ, Adrian Partington, conductor, Gloucester Cathedral broadcast premiere of festival commission The Gloucester Service by Ian King is a Three Choirs Festival commission which will receive its first performance at Choral Evensong in Gloucester Cathedral on 25 June and its broadcast premiere on Wednesday 27 July, as part of a service from the cathedral which begins at 3.30 pm. The Three Cathedral Choirs of Gloucester, Worcester and Hereford will be accompanied by organist Jonathan Hope and conducted by Adrian Partington. Ian King was born in Hereford in 1962. He was a chorister in Hereford Cathedral choir and studied organ with Roy Massey. He was organ scholar at St. Peter’s College, Oxford, graduating with a first class degree in music. Ian has worked as a piano teacher for many years, principally at Worcester Sixth Form College. He was commissioned to write A Worcestershire Song Cycle, with words by playwright Chris Jaeger MBE, for the 2011 Worcester Three Choirs Festival; it is also available on CD. His next major commission was a setting of the St. John Passion for Gloucester Cathedral, first performed in 2014 and annually since then on Good Friday. He is currently working on a commission for Worcester Choir celebrating the tenth anniversary of its girl choristers. www.iankingmusic.co.uk Adrian Partington writes: ‘Ian was the obvious choice when I had to commission a new work to be performed for the Three Cathedral Choirs broadcast Evensong. Listeners will hear something quite new. The work is challenging, and complex, and owes a debt to the minimalists, I would say, in its use of ostinato patterns and shifting harmonies. I can’t recommend the work highly enough, and hope that this setting of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis will enter the repertoires of the bigger cathedral and university chapel choirs.’ THURSDAY 28 JULY Joshua Pacey Mary’s Lullaby St Cecilia Singers, Jonathan Hope, conductor, Gloucester Cathedral world premiere of winning anthem in John Sanders Society Choral Composition Competition Mary’s Lullaby by Joshua Pacey was the winning entry in the John Sanders Memorial Competition for Young Composers 2016. The anthem will be premiered by the St Cecilia Singers, conducted by Jonathan Hope, in Gloucester Cathedral at Choral Evensong on Thursday 28 July at 5.30 pm. 5 Joshua Pacey is in his final year studying music at Clare College, Cambridge. Having begun composing at an early age, he has won several competitions including the Homerton College Composition Competition 2016, the Clare College Christmas Carol Composition Competition 2016. His work has been performed in the UK and the USA, and been broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Choral Evensong. He was a boy chorister at Winchester Cathedral, and is now senior choral scholar of the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge. In September Joshua is looking forward to beginning his studies at the Royal College of Music for a Masters in Composition for Screen. This biennial John Sanders Competition for aspiring young composers of choral music is arranged by The Sanders Society (www.sanderssociety.org.uk) and has attracted wide international interest. The judging panel of Dr Christopher Robinson, Bob Chilcott, Adrian Partington and Tim Rogers of Encore Publications unanimously agreed to award the prize of £1000 to Joshua Pacey. Christopher Robinson comments that Joshua's setting of Mary’s Lullaby ‘is firmly rooted in the English tradition, with occasional echoes of Vaughan Williams and Howells, and illustrates with great skill and imagination the general atmosphere of a “quite dark”13th-­‐century text. Musical textures are varied and, though singers may find some of the dissonance challenging, it always seems logical and relevant.’ The composition is being published by Encore Publications. (www.encorepublications.com) FRIDAY 29 JULY David Bednall Gloria and Nunc dimittis Three Cathedral Choirs, Jonathan Hope, organ, Peter Nardone, conductor, Gloucester Cathedral David Bednall’s Gloria and Nunc dimittis have been commissioned by the Finzi Trust to complete the set of Evening Canticles for which Finzi only wrote a Magnificat. They were first performed earlier this year and will be sung during Choral Evensong in Gloucester Cathedral on Friday 29 July at 5.30 pm. Adrian Partington writes: ‘Finzi’s Magnificat was a result of an American commission, and Finzi finished it in a hurry. It is alleged he wrote the ‘Amen’ in a taxi. The link between the Magnificat and the Amen is most unconvincing, and the start of the Amen “jars” as a result. The piece has been crying out to be finished for fifty years – and now it has been. The Bednall completions are works of genius. David has totally assimilated Finzi’s rather elusive compositional style – its mixture of the English pastoral, with its undercurrents of melancholy, sometimes of menace and sometimes of triumph – and he has used Finzi’s Magnificat themes so subtly and so imaginatively, that it is simply not possible to tell where Finzi ends and Bednall’s Gloria begins. The work can now be used liturgically, and should excite a lot of interest amongst cathedral choirs in the UK and beyond. The Finzi Trust chose David Bednall to undertake this commission because he is well known as both a Finzi enthusiast, and composer of huge talent, whose instinctive style is not a long way from Finzi’s own mature style.’ 6 A new window commemorating Gerald Finzi and designed and fabricated by Thomas Denny will be dedicated in Gloucester Cathedral on 25 June 2016. Joseph Phibbs Memento Musica Philharmonia Orchestra, Adrian Partington, conductor, Gloucester Cathedral world premiere of festival commission Memento Musica by Joseph Phibbs is an orchestral fantasia inspired by the work of the Gloucester-­‐based charity Mindsong, which is the Three Choirs Festival’s associated charity for 2016. The new work will be performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Adrian Partington in Gloucester Cathedral on Friday 29 July, in a concert starting at 7.45 pm. Mindsong has been providing music therapy in care homes since it was founded in 2006 by GP Anthea Holland and therapist Jane Crampton as a pilot outreach project for the Three Choirs Festival. It is now an autonomous organisation. Mindsong’s professional music therapists work in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, with people who have mid-­‐ to late-­‐stage dementia, allowing those for whom verbal communication may be lost to reconnect, share memories and release emotions through their own improvised instrumental music and song. They also train staff in the care homes to run their own singing groups. Current activity includes participating with 25 other charities in the national ‘A Choir in Every Care Home’ project. Adrian Partington writes: ‘When the charity Mindsong generously decided to commission an orchestral piece for our 2016 festival I had no hesitation but to ask Joseph Phibbs to write it. I conducted the second performance of his 20-­‐
minute orchestral fantasy Rivers to the Sea, which was a Philharmonia commission, at the Hereford Three Choirs Festival 2012. Along with Brett Dean’s Komarov’s Fall, which I had the privilege of conducting at Gloucester in 2013, the Phibbs piece was the most exciting new orchestral work heard at the festival for very many years. The 2016 commission, Memento musica, will reflect the aims and successes of Mindsong; and I can’t wait to see the score …’ Joseph Phibbs was born in London in 1974, and studied at The Purcell School, King's College London, and Cornell University. His teachers have included Param Vir, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, and Steven Stucky. His works have been championed by some of the world’s leading conductors. Rivers to the Sea, his largest work to date, was premiered in 2012 (Philharmonia Orchestra/Esa-­‐Pekka Salonen), and performed at the 2012 Three Choirs Festival under Adrian Partington. It won the orchestral category of the 2013 British Composer Awards. Other major orchestras to have performed his works include the London Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra (Washington), and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, for which Phibbs has written four major works, including Partita, premiered in May 2016 at the Barbican Centre. Large-­‐scale choral works include Tenebrae for soprano, choir and orchestra (with Lesley-­‐Jane Rogers and St Albans Bach Choir/Andrew Lucas), Choral Songs of Homage (commissioned by Aldeburgh Music Club for the Britten centenary), and Shadows of Sleep (premiered in 2010 at Snape Maltings under Peter Nardone and subsequently 7 conducted by Adrian Partington at the 2014 Three Choirs Festival). His Missa Brevis was premiered under Matthew Owens in Wells Cathedral in May 2016. In preparation for writing Memento Musica Phibbs attended Mindsong therapy sessions in care homes and he has incorporated elements from some of the songs and musical ideas that evoked memories for the participants within the piece. 8