Here’s a wonderful video of our performance a few weeks ago at the Southbank Centre of Arvo Pärt’s ‘Summa’ for string quartet.
We’re playing this beautiful piece again on 4th November at Opera North, 12th November at Sound Festival in Scotland and on 6th March 2012 at City Music Society at the Bishopsgate Institute. Do come and join us to hear it again!
Music for People is a new and exciting collaboration between ‘the brilliant Endymion’ and EXAUDI, ‘the extraordinary ensemble of vocal virtuosi’. We’re joining forces for two evenings of ‘new simplicity’ at the Southbank Centre, with music by Arvo Pärt, Morton Feldman and four exciting new works especially commissioned for this project from four renegade young composers: Joanna Bailie, Andrew Hamilton, Philip Venables and James Weeks.
The first concert, on September 19th, includes two of Pärt’s best known instrumental compositions, ‘Fratres’ and ‘Summa’, as well as the beautiful ‘Stabat Mater’ and the rarely performed ‘Pilgrim’s Song’. Alongside these, the premieres of ‘Artificial Environment No. 6’ by Joanna Bailie, and ‘numbers 76-80 : tristan und isolde’ by Philip Venables, both for voices, string quartet and tape.
The second evening, on September 21st, features Morton Feldman’s iconic ‘Clarinet and String Quartet’ from 1983 and the earlier pieces ‘Only’, for solo voice on a text by Rilke, and ‘Voices & Cello’.
These are paired up with two new commissions by composers inspired by Feldman – ‘right and wrong’ by Andrew Hamilton and ‘Inscription’ by James Weeks.
The project is being generously supported by the Marina Kleinwort Charitable Trust, the Ernest Cook Trust, the PRS for Music Foundation, the Holst Foundation, the RVW Trust, the Leche Trust, the Golden Bottle Trust and the Golsoncott Foundation.
Check out the flyer here, and book your tickets now through the Southbank Centre website – details below. There are student tickets from £5 too.
Monday, September 19th, 7.45pm
Arvo Pärt - Summa
Joanna Bailie - Artificial Environment No.6 (world premiere)
Arvo Pärt - Wallfahrtslied (Pilgrim’s Song)*
Philip Venables - numbers 76-80 : tristan und isolde (world premiere)
Arvo Pärt - Fratres
Arvo Pärt - Stabat Mater
Wednesday, September 21st, 7.45pm
Morton Feldman - Only, for solo voice
James Weeks - Inscription (world premiere)
Morton Feldman - Voices & Cello
Andrew Hamilton - right and wrong (world premiere)
Morton Feldman - Clarinet and String Quartet**
We were delighted with our late-night performance of Arvo Pärt a few weeks ago at Wigmore Hall with the wonderful EXAUDI. We performed in Wigmore Hall’s new late-night series, at 10pm on Friday 8th July. The hall was really full (busier than for the 7pm concert that night!) and the atmosphere was really serene and concentrated, for four contrasting pieces of Pärt: Fratres, Summa, Pilgrim’s Song and the Stabat Mater.
Geoff Brown reviewed for The Times:
“One Arvo Pärt work followed another, from the chord sequences of Fratres to the measured sorrows of his Stabat Mater setting: music of rapturous, daring simplicity, vigorously etched by a string quartet drawn from Endymion and three of Exaudi’s fearless voices.”
This was the first performance in a line of Arvo Pärt performances, not least our large Music for People project at Southbank Centre on 19th and 21st September, when we’ll be joining up with EXAUDI again to perform more Pärt, plus some Morton Feldman and four new commissions from James Weeks, Joanna Bailie, Andrew Hamilton and Philip Venables. More to follow on here soon, but book your tickets now
Monday 19th September: Pärt, Venables, Bailie.
Wednesday 21st September: Feldman, Hamilton, Weeks.
The photo here is us rehearsing the Stabat Mater in Wigmore Hall on the morning of the concert.
Posted in 2011 concerts, London concerts
Tagged Arvo Pärt, EXAUDI, Geoff Brown, Music for People, Southbank Centre, The Times, Wigmore Hall
We’re really excited to be featuring in Wigmore Hall‘s new late-night series next Friday evening at 10pm. For this special concert, we’ve teamed up with EXAUDI (“the extraordinary ensemble of vocal virtuosi” – Sunday Times) to present a retrospective of music by Arvo Pärt, for strings and voices.
The concert includes Fratres and Summa, two of his most famous works known to many from films and television, and the Stabat Mater, one of the first major sacred works in his “holy minimalism” style.
This performance is in advance of our Music for People project at Southbank Centre on 19th and 21st September 2011, when we will premiere four exciting new commissions from Andrew Hamilton, Joanna Bailie, James Weeks and Philip Venables written for Endymion and EXAUDI, to be performed alongside the music of Arvo Pärt and Morton Feldman.
Tickets for Wigmore are available here – they’re selling quickly, so book now. It would be great to see you there. Tickets are only £12!
Posted in 2011 concerts, London concerts
Tagged Arvo Pärt, EXAUDI, Music for People, Southbank Centre, Wigmore Hall