TRANSATLANTIC RHAPSODIES Jonathan Dove – George Gershwin –

James Lark – Randall Thompson – Eric Whitacre

Lewisham Choral Society Dan Ludford-Thomas – Conductor

The Bromley Boy Singers Travis Baker – Conductor Krystal Tunnicliffe – Piano

Nico de Villiers – Piano James Orford – Piano

London Orchestra da Camera Percussion Ensemble

Jonathan Dove: The Passing of the Year Lewisham Choral Society; Dan Ludford-Thomas, conductor; Nico de Villiers & James Orford, pianos; LodC Percussion Ensemble 1. Invocation O Earth, O Earth, return! 2. The narrow bud opens her beauties to the sun The narrow bud opens her beauties to The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins; Blossoms hang round the brows of morning, and Flourish down the bright cheek of modest eve, Till clust’ring Summer breaks forth into singing, And feather’d clouds strew flowers round her head. The spirits of the air live in the smells Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round The gardens, or sits singing in the trees. William Blake

3. Answer July Answer July – Where is the Bee – Where is the Blush – Where is the Hay? Ah, said July – Where is the Seed – Where is the Bud – Where is the May – Answer Thee – Me – Nay – said the May – Show me the Snow – Show me the Bells– Show me the Jay! Quibbled the Jay – Where be the Maize –

Where be the Haze – Where be the Bur? Emily Dickinson Here – said the Year 4. Hot sun, cool fire Hot sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air, Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair: Shine, sun; burn, fire; breathe, air, and ease me; Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me and please me: Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning, Make not my glad cause, cause of [my] mourning. Let not my beauty’s fire Inflame unstaid desire, George Peele

Nor pierce any bright eye That wand’reth lightly. 5. Ah, Sun-flower! Ah Sun-flower! weary of time, Who countest the steps of the Sun, Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the traveller’s journey is done: Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow Arise from their graves, and aspire Where my Sun-flower wishes to go. 6. Adieu! farewell earth’s bliss! Adieu! farewell earth’s bliss, This world uncertain is: Fond are life’s lustful joys, Death proves them all but toys, None from his darts can fly: I am sick, I must die – Lord, have mercy on us! Rich men, trust not in wealth, Gold cannot buy you health; Physic himself must fade; All things to end are made; The plague full swift goes by: I am sick, I must die – Lord, have mercy on us! Beauty is but a flower Which wrinkles will devour: Brightness falls from the air; Thomas Nashe Queens have died young and fair Dust hath closed Helen’s eye: I am sick, I must die – Lord, have mercy on us! 7. Ring out, wild bells O Earth, O Earth, return! Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Alfred Tennyson Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Jonathan Dove: Seek Him that Maketh the Seven Stars Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion and turneth the shadow of death into the morning. Alleluia, yea, the darkness shineth as the day, the night is light about me. Amen.

George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue for two pianos

Interval James Lark: Broadside Ballads The Bromley Boy Singers; Travis Baker, conductor; Krystal Tunnicliffe, piano 1. Liston’s Drolleries: Something New Starts Every Day (London, between 1819 and 1844)

Oh! dear, oh! dear, the world quite strange is, Every day brings forth some changes.

Ups and downs, and alterations, Bran new plans and speculations Sharps awake, employed in scheming, (People who have got the vapours) Flats asleep, or kindly dreaming; (Have only to read the London papers.) Shares of all sorts, how surprising, Sinking money by their rising! Oh! dear, oh! dear, with truth I say, Something new starts every day. 2. The New Gagging Bill (London, 1848) John Liston Attend to me and you shall see, All ranks and each condition, They have passed a bill, a gagging bill, Called Treason and Sedition. You must not look, you must not speak Mind what you say by night and day And don’t speak out of reason For everything God bless the Queen, Is reckoned up high treason. Now you must look before you speak, And mind what you are after, ‘Tis death if you should say Repeal, Or please we want the charter, Sew up your mouths without delay, The Government proposes, And what the people was to say, They shall whistle through their noses. And when the summer months are come, And flowers sweet are springing, I should have the cuckoo mind her eye, When she begins a singing, If she don’t whistle cuckoo plain, They will for treason match her, And send her o’er the main, if the Policeman can but catch her. The gagging bill affect now will All classes and conditions,

If a woman calls her husband rogue, She is guilty of sedition. Old erin say I am opprest, All up and down the country, It is treason for a man to say My wife and child’s hungry. To make an end my loving friends, Take all things pray in reason, And guide your mouth, east, west and south, You must not look, you must not speak Mind what you say by night and day And don’t speak out of reason Or you’ll be nailed for treason.

3. St. James’s and St. Giles’s (London, between 1846 and 1854) To the tourist of London, who’s curious in fact, I’ll point out some things to the principal tracts, Two places there are where the poor and the rich Live so like each other, there’s no telling which. One parish St. James’s, par excellent call’d, The West end of town and the fashionable world; The other St. Giles’s, if true rumour speaks, Is inhabited solely by Emigrant Greeks. So don’t be astonished at what I shall say, St James’s and St Giles’s I’ve seen in my day,

In the former they live on the National Debt, In the latter they live on what they can get. In St. James’s there is but one Palace I swear, In St. Giles’s Gin Palaces everywhere, At the Court of St. James’s they hang out the flags In a court in St. Giles’s they hang out the rags. In St. James’s Pall Mall is considered polite, In St. Giles’s pell mell in the gutter they fight, In St. James’s Conservative principles run, In St. Giles’s the principle is nuffink to none. St James’s Palace So don’t be astonished at what I shall say, St James’s and St Giles’s I’ve seen in my day, In the former they live on the National Debt, In the latter they live on what they can get.

In St. James’s with calling the morning is spent, In St. Giles’s the landlord calls for his rent, In St. James’s the Queen holds a drawing-room gay, In St. Giles’s Joe Smith holds a garret all day, In St. James’s the togs are got out very bright, In St. Giles’s they’re got out on a Saturday night, In St. James’s they sleep on down pillows and snore, In St. Giles’s the same but it’s down on the floor. So don’t be astonished at what I shall say, St James’s and St Giles’s I’ve seen in my day, In the former they live on the National Debt, In the latter they live on what they can get. In St. James’s the nobs to the Opera go, Because they can’t bear anything that is low, In St. Giles’s that being too slap-up, it’s agreed To go to the stall of the Garden instead. In St. James’s they keep up their spirits with wine, In St. Giles’s they’re drunk on blue ruin by nine, In St. James’s they banquet on silver, in state, In St. Giles’s the same, but in two-penny plates, In St. James’s the officers’ mess at the club, In St. Giles’s they often have messes for grub, In St. James’s they feast on the highest of game, In St. Giles’s they live on foul air just the same. So don’t be astonished at what I shall say, St James’s and St Giles’s I’ve seen in my day, In the former they live on the National Debt, In the latter they live on what they can get. Now comparisons mostly are odious I’ve heard And such being the case, I think it absurd, To say any more on the subject just now, For fear of offending the high and the low. But next time I travel these parts of the town, Some further particulars, sirs, shall go down, Of the sweets of St. James’s with bitters mixed in, In St. Giles’s the bitters are mixed up with the gin. Hogarth’s Gin Lane

4. Poor Savoyard Boy (London, between 1813 and 1838)

I came from a land far away, far away, My parents to keep me were poor, To please you I sing, & I play, I play, Yet a living can scarcely procure. About, sad and hungry I go, Tho’ smiling as if ‘twere with joy, Then a trifle in pity bestow, To relieve a poor Savoyard Boy. When round me the children I see, I see, So careless & happy appear, I sigh while they listen to me, to me, And oft as I play, drop a tear.

I cannot help thinking that they, Can fly to their parents with joy, While mine they are far, far away; Then relieve a poor Savoyard Boy. Should I return to that land far away, far away, My poor hapless parents to see, With me they for ever would pray, would pray, For the kindness you lavish’d on me. Oh! had I the means to repay Their bounty, I would then with joy Then turn not in pity away, But relieve a poor Savoyard Boy.

5. There’s a Good Time Coming (Durham, between 1797 and 1834)

There’s a good time coming boys, A good time coming, We may not live to see the day, But the earth shall glisten in the ray, Of the good time coming, Cannon balls may aid the truth, But thought’s a weapon stronger, We’ll win our battle by its aid, Wait a little longer. There’s a good time coming boys, A good time coming, The pen shall supersede the sword,

And right, not might, shall be the lord, In the good time coming, Worth, not birth, shall rule mankind, And be acknowledged stronger, The proper impulse has been given, Wait a little longer. There’s a good time coming boys, A good time coming, And a poor man’s family, Shall not be his misery, In the good time coming, Every child shall be a help, To make his right arm stronger, The happier he, the more he has, Wait a little longer. There’s a good time coming boys, A good time coming, The people shall be temperate, And shall love instead of hate, In the good time coming, Ballad seller They shall use and not abuse, And make all virtue stronger, The reformation has begun, Wait a little longer. There’s a good time coming boys, A good time coming, Let us aid it all we can, Every woman, every man, The good time coming. Smallest helps, if rightly given, Make the impulse stronger, ‘Twill be strong enough one day, Wait a little longer. There’s a good time coming boys, Wait a little longer.

Randall Thompson: Fare Well When I lie where shades of darkness Shall no more assail mine eyes, Nor the rain make lamentation When the wind sighs; How will fare the world whose wonder Was the very proof of me? Memory fades, must the remembered Perishing be? Oh, when this my dust surrenders Hand, foot, lip, to dust again, May these loved and loving faces Please other men! Walter de la Mare

May the rusting harvest hedgerow Still the Traveller's Joy entwine, And as happy children gather Posies once mine. Look thy last on all things lovely, Every hour. Let no night Seal thy sense in deathly slumber Till to delight Thou have paid thy utmost blessing; Since that all things thou wouldst praise Beauty took from those who loved them In other days.

Eric Whitacre: When David Heard When David heard that Absalom was slain He went up into his chamber over the gate and wept And thus he said; When David heard that Absalom was slain He went up into his chamber over the gate and wept And thus he said; My son, my son O Absalom my son Would God I had died for thee!

Eric Whitacre: Sleep

The evening hangs beneath the moon, A silver thread on darkened dune. With closing eyes and resting head I know that sleep is coming soon. Upon my pillow, safe in bed, A thousand pictures fill my head. I cannot sleep, my mind’s a-flight; And yet my limbs seem made of lead. If there are noises in the night, A frightening shadow, flickering light, Then I surrender unto sleep, Where clouds of dream give second sight, What dreams may come, both dark and deep, Of flying wings and soaring leap As I surrender unto sleep, Charles Anthony Silvestri As I surrender unto sleep.

THE COMPOSERS & THEIR WORK

Jonathan Dove (1959-) The Passing of the Year Seek Him that Maketh the Seven Stars Jonathan Dove was born in London on 18 July 1959. Both his parents were architects but it was to music that their son turned when, after school in Blackheath and learning to play the piano, organ and viola, he studied under composer Robin Holloway at Cambridge. He then worked as a freelance arranger and accompanist and his childhood habit of making up pieces at the piano soon led him to take up composing in earnest and particularly in the vocal and operatic fields; he

became assistant chorus master at Glyndebourne in the late 1980s. And it was Glyndebourne which led to his operatic breakthrough in the form of his 1988 work Flight. He has since written more than 20 stage works and much vocal and choral music. Two years after Flight he set poetry inspired by the seasons in his song cycle The Passing of the Year. The first three of the seven poems all look forward to summer, beginning in Invocation with a line by the great English poet, painter and print maker William Blake (1757-1827). More lines by Blake follow in The narrow bud, before Dove

turns to the American poet Emily Dickinson in Answer July, the rapid pace of which reflects nature bursting into life with the heat of summer. That heat reaches its peak in the fourth poem Hot sun, cool fire by the Elizabethan poet and dramatist George Peele (1556-1596), taken from the opening scene of Peele’s drama David and Bethsabe. In this a girl bathing in a spring feels the power and danger of her beauty. We then return to verses by Blake in Ah, Sun-flower! before lines by the Elizabethan playwright, poet and satirist Thomas Nashe (1567-1601), lines taken from his Summer’s Last Will and Testament, which evoke the mortality of autumn. As the year ends in winter so does the music, with a passage from In Memoriam by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) which depicts the bells of New Year’s Eve. Dove dedicated his song cycle to his mother “who died too young”. It was first performed in London’s Barbican Centre on 18 March 2000. Tonight we are performing a version for chorus, two pianos and percussion which was commissioned for the 200th anniversary of Edition Peters in 2000. Seek Him that Maketh the Seven Stars was written as an anthem for the Friends of the Royal Academy of Arts’ annual service for artists in 1995. Searching for a text, Jonathan Dove decided that words in the Old Testament book of Amos and in Psalm 139 – with their reference to light and stars – “would have a special meaning for visual artists”. And after all, for Dove “the theme of light, and starlight in particular, is an endless source of inspiration for composers”. The composer explains that “begins with a musical image of the night sky, a repeated [instrumental] motif of twinkling stars that sets the choir wondering who made them. The refrain Seek Him starts in devotional longing but is eventually released into a joyful dance, finally coming to rest in serenity.” The work was first performed on 24 May 1995 at St James’s Church Piccadilly, in its original version for choir and organ. More recently it was also sung during the service of thanksgiving for Professor Stephen Hawking in Westminster Abbey. With the composer’s approval our own organist, James Orford, has made a version for choir and two pianos which we premiere tonight. George Gershwin (1898-1937) Rhapsody in Blue On 26 September 1898 a second son – baptised Jacob – was born to Morris and Rose Bruskin Gershwine in their second floor apartment on Brooklyn’s Snediker Avenue. Morris – himself born Moishe Gershowitz – and Rose, born as Roza Bruzskina – had both fled to America from the increasingly anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia. Jacob was soon to become known as George, a rough-and-tumble scallywag who often skipped school to be found roller-skating along the sidewalks of New York’s Lower East Side. Meanwhile Rose decided she should emulate her sister and buy a family piano, with the intention of it being used by George’s Gershwin self-portrait

more scholarly older brother Ira. However, as their sister Frances later explained, “the family was flabbergasted” to find that it was George who started tinkling the ivories. It turned out that the 12-year old had secretly been intrigued by the musical exploits of his friends: one had given a violin recital and another had a player piano at home. Over the next few years George worked his way through a number of piano teachers, finally settling on Charles Hambitzer, who wrote “I have a new pupil who will make his mark if anybody will. The boy is a genius”. George left school at the age of 15 and found work on New York’s Tin Pan Alley as a song plugger – someone who in music stores plays the latest tunes to prospective buyers of sheet music. Two years later one of his own songs was published and earned its composer – now finally known as George Gershwin – the princely sum of 50 cents. It was at a party in 1919 that the famous Broadway singer Al Jolson heard Gershwin play his song Swanee; he incorporated it into one of his shows and it thus became a nationwide hit and made Gershwin’s name. One million copies of the sheet music and around two million records of the song were sold.

An attraction to jazz led to George writing a one-act jazz opera, Blue Monday, set in Harlem and performed under the bandleader Paul Whiteman, who then asked Gershwin to pen another jazz-influenced work to heighten the genre’s respectability. This suited George’s own philosophy; he said “true music must reflect the thoughts and aspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans. My time is today.” Work to fulfil Whiteman’s request didn’t start straight away however. The story goes that late on the evening of 3 January 1923, while his brother was playing billiards with a friend in downtown Manhattan, Ira Gershwin spotted an article

Paul Whiteman in the next morning’s edition of the New York Tribune entitled What is American music? This claimed that Ira’s brother was at work on a jazz concerto “to be performed only five weeks later”. The problem was that George had all but forgotten the commission and was already hard at work on a musical comedy. Nevertheless, themes soon came to him, while travelling by rail to Boston. Gershwin explained: “It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang that is often so stimulating to a composer” “I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise. And then I suddenly heard – and even saw on paper – the complete construction of the rhapsody from beginning to end”. And thus the nucleus of what was to become Rhapsody in Blue was born.

Gershwin wrote: “I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America – of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness.” The work was given the working title American Rhapsody but after visiting an exhibition of James McNeill Whistler’s paintings – which bore titles such as Nocturne in Black and Gold and Arrangement in Grey and Black – Ira suggested a change of title to Rhapsody in Blue.

And it was originally written for two pianos only – the version Nico and James will play tonight. After three weeks George sent the finished piano score to the orchestrator Ferde Grofé and the piece was ready in its final form eight days before its premiere on the afternoon of Tuesday 12 February 1924 in New York’s Aeolian Hall. Gershwin himself was at the piano, accompanied by Whiteman’s Palais Royal Orchestra. The event had been advertised as educational – an “Experiment in Modern Music” organised to show that jazz deserved to be regarded as a serious and sophisticated art form.

The hall was packed but the audience – which included John Philip Sousa, Sergei Rachmaninov and Igor Stravinsky – was becoming restless after enduring 24 similarly sounding musical examples presented to demonstrate Whiteman’s belief. And it didn’t help that the hall’s ventilation system had broken down! Gershwin’s piece appeared to save the day however; it received rapturous applause. The critics were divided; the New York Tribune’s judgement was harsh: “how trite, feeble and conventional the tunes are; how sentimental and vapid the harmonic treatment, under its disguise of fussy and futile counterpoint!...Weep over the lifelessness of the melody and harmony, so derivative, so stale, so inexpressive!” The New York Times critic found much more to praise: “this is no mere dance tune set for piano and other instruments. This composition shows extraordinary talent, just as it shows a young composer with aims that go far beyond those of his ilk”. In any case, Gershwin’s public was convinced: by the end of 1927 Whiteman’s band had performed it 84 times and a million copies of its recording were sold. And of course its popularity has endured to this day, not only in concert halls, broadcasts and recordings but also in film scores and a spectacular performance by 84 pianists at the opening ceremony of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. James Lark (1979-) Broadside Ballads James Lark has written music for the choir of Westminster Abbey, Graham Johnson and the Songmakers’ Almanac, Guy Bovet and James Bowman. His work has been performed by English Voices, Vivamus, the choirs of St Paul’s Cathedral and Girton, Selywn and Trinity Colleges in Cambridge. James’s latest commission was a chorale prelude for The Orgelbüchlein Project, a major international composition project to complete J.S. Bach’s Little Organ Book. Theatre music includes Io Theatre Company's adaptations of A Christmas Carol and The Snow Spider, their realisation of J. M. Barrie’s A Well Remembered Voice and their 2016 production of The Confessions of Fanny Cradock. He wrote the new musical Miracles at Short Notice and the award-winning 2007 total Fringe sell-out show Tony Blair the Musical. Other productions as composer and musical director include The Snow Queen, Peter Pan: the Revenge of Captain Hook, Jack Thorne’s With Blacks, Lysistrata,

NewsRevue and a collaboration with Andrew Motion for Bush Theatre’s Sixty-Six Books. Short film scores include Death Sentence, The Ghost of Kirkton Fell and Savage Mountain. He was composer-in-residence at Bedford School and is Director of Music at Westminster Abbey Choir School.

Broadside Ballads was conceived as a special commission for The Bromley Boy Singers’ 40th anniversary last year and was given its world premiere as part of the Brandenburg London Choral Festival to a full house and critical acclaim. The complexity of the work demands just the quality of tone, musical sensibility and technical skill for which The Bromley Boy Singers is renowned. The historical pamphlet texts of Broadside Ballads speak of modern, relevant topics: censorship, poverty and immigration. They are set to an intricate and involving musical weave, showcasing each section of the choir and depicting what is it like to be a boy in London – in the past and in the present.

The words of the first ballad – Liston’s Drolleries: Something new starts every day – are drawn from “a choice collection of tit bits, laughable scraps, comic songs, tales and recitations” by the popular stage comic John Liston (c1776-1846). The second ballad – The New Gagging Bill – refers back to the Crown & Government Security Act of 1848, introduced not only because of the many threats to, and attacks on, the young Queen Victoria but also as a panic reaction to the rise of the Chartist movement which sought rights for the working classes. This law made it a crime to speak or write of what were considered treasonable threats to the Queen and the Crown. The third ballad – St James’s and St Giles’s – speaks of the social and financial contrast between these two London districts: one with the royal Court, the rich and the fashionable, the other with the poor and the downtrodden, its gin palaces and the setting for Hogarth’s Gin Lane. The fourth ballad – Poor Savoyard Boy – refers to a poor immigrant from the Alpine region of Savoy between France and Italy; Savoyards had traditionally migrated to foreign cities to find work and were among the ubiquitous street characters of urban life on the margins of society. The first lines of the fifth ballad – There’s a good time coming – have been attributed to the Scottish poet and journalist Charles Mackay (1814-1889), although the broadside on which it appears has been dated between 1797 and 1834! This ends the

whole work with a strong message of hope and empowerment for future generations. Randall Thompson (1899-1984) Fare Well Ira Randall Thompson was born in New York City on 21 April 1899. He studied at Harvard University and privately under the Swiss-born American composer Ernest Bloch. In 1922 Thompson won a 3-year fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, where Italian composer Gian Francesco

Malipiero was his teacher. It was in the world of musical academia that Thompson was to find his niche: back in the USA he became an assistant professor of music at Harvard, obtained a doctorate in music at the Eastman School of Music and taught at the Curtis Institute of Music. Leonard Bernstein was his pupil at both Harvard and Curtis. His own compositions included three symphonies and a large number of vocal works and have been described as American in spirit and yet universal in their appeal. Thompson himself said that “a composer’s first responsibility is, and always will be, to write music that will reach and move the hearts of his listeners in his own days”. He had been a personal acquaintance of the poet Robert Frost, from whom he had obtained exceptional permission to set some of Frost’s poetry. It was however to the work of British poet Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) that Thompson turned when he set the Englishman’s First World War poem Fare Well more than 50 years after these lines were written. His choral setting of the three-stanza poem was first performed by the combined high school choirs of Calhoun, Kennedy and Mepham on Long Island, New York. It was dedicated to the choirs’ directors and singers and written in honour of Jacob Gunther (1885-1971), a German immigrant who had made his money in America both as a florist and by buying and selling farm land. He became a great financial benefactor of the schools’ choirs and of Mepham’s football team. So it was only fitting that the music was premiered on 4 March 1973 at a memorial concert for Gunther at St John’s Lutheran Church in New York. Eric Whitacre (1970-) When David Heard Sleep Eric Edward Whitacre was born in Reno, Nevada on 2 January 1970. As a child he started learning to play the piano, joined a school marching band and played synthesizer in a techno-pop band with dreams of being a rock star. His inability to read music at the time did not stop him from obtaining a degree in musical education from his local university and eventually he gained a Master’s degree in composition at the prestigious Juilliard School after studies with composers John Corigliano and David Diamond. His reputation as a choral conductor and composer continued to grow until in 2012 his first album demonstrating his work in both roles won a Grammy award. He completed a 5-year residency at Cambridge University’s Sidney Sussex College before returning recently to the United States as the first artist-in-residence for the Los Angeles Master Chorale at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA. There is no denying that Whitacre has become one of the world’s leading composers of contemporary choral music and the two pieces we sing tonight are prime examples of his

work. When David Heard was first performed on 26 March 1999, having been commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for the Arts for Brigham Youth Singers of Utah and dedicated to the choir’s conductor, Dr Ronald Staheli. The piece was needed for a tour of Israel being planned by the choir. Three weeks after Whitacre accepted the commission, Staheli’s 19-year old son was killed in a car accident. Whitacre said: “I didn’t know what to do...I spent many months trying to craft the piece for him and tried to find the essence of the grief. It took fifteen months....It was born from a place of pain and suffering....It is probably the most personal piece I’ve ever written”. The composer chose to follow a centuries-old musical tradition of setting – for kings who had lost their son – as Whitacre describes it, “one single, devastating line” from the second book of Samuel, a deeply moving account of the moment when King David learns of the death of his son Absalom. One of the earliest examples of this tradition is the setting by the Flemish composer Josquin des Prez for the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, on the death of his eldest son Juan. The late Renaissance English composers Thomas Tomkins and Thomas Weelkes also followed suit. In his setting Whitacre said he intended in his own setting “to give...some small measure of peace and meaning.”

Also in 1999, Whitacre was contacted by the Texas lawyer and mezzo soprano Julia Armstrong who wanted to commission from him a choral setting of her favourite poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by the great American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963). The commission was to be in memory of Armstrong’s parents who had died within weeks of each other after more than 50 years of marriage. Whitacre’s setting was premiered in October 2000 and was well received. The composer had however failed to secure permission to use the poem. And Frost’s poetry had been under tight control by his estate since his death. Until 1997 only Randall Thompson had permission to set these poems – and then only because of his personal connection with the man himself. That year however a number of Frost’s verses – including Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening – were released by the estate, resulting in many musical settings by various composers. So many in fact that the estate withdrew permission for further settings until the verses were due to go into the public domain in 2038. A long legal battle ensued between Whitacre, Frost’s estate and his publisher to try to maintain the composer’s setting but to no avail.

Not wanting to wait so many years to publish his music, Whitacre decided to ask a poet friend and frequent collaborator, Charles Anthony Silvestri, to write new lines matching the structure, rhyme scheme and vowel sounds of the Frost poem which would fit in with the existing music. A tall order for most perhaps but Silvestri said “I worked furiously, seized by the inspiration of the challenge, and gave Eric the finished poem the next morning”. For this new poem Silvestri produced lines which took up the theme of sleep from the last stanza of Frost’s original poem. And so a new poetic and musical work was born…entitled Sleep. Eric Whitacre now says he prefers his friend’s poem to the original and he will not publish his Frost setting even after 2038. And his setting with the Silvestri

words which we sing tonight has joined the long list of Whitacre’s works within the standard choral repertoire.

TONIGHT’S PERFORMERS

Nico de Villiers – Piano South African-born pianist Nico de Villiers is a coach, accompanist and researcher based in London. He holds degrees from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, the University of Michigan, as well as the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Regularly performing as collaborative pianist to singers and chamber musicians, Nico performed in recital at: the Terrace Theatre at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC; Birmingham Symphony Hall; the Barbican and St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London; the Kammermusiksaal in Bonn, Germany; and the Mozarteum Grosser Saal in Salzburg.

Festival performances include performances at the Salzburg Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Oxford Lieder Festival, Chopin Birthday Festival in Warsaw, Poland, and the International Johannesburg Mozart Festival in South Africa. As repetiteur Nico worked with various groups including the BBC Singers, Cumbernauld Choir (Glasgow), opera scenes performances for the Oxenfoord Summer Programme (Scotland), the Aderley International Music School (England) and Queens Park Singers. Nico has been the assistant director of music of the Lewisham Choral Society since 2009. Nico worked as vocal coach at various institutions including the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, Trinity Laban Conservatory, Royal College of Music, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, UK. Masterclasses and workshops include institutions such as Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, University of Portland, Portland, Oregon (USA), the Birmingham Conservatory (UK), Kungliga Musikhögskolan in Stockholm (Sweden) and the Universities of Stellenbosch, Pretoria and the Free State (South Africa). He has been on the faculty of various summer programmes including the Oxenfoord Summer Programme in Scotland, the Abingdon Summer School of Solo Singers, Aderley International Music School in England, the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) in Graz, Austria and the International Music Academy in Pilsen, Czech Republic and the Jablonski Piano Academy in Sweden. Nico is currently a coach on the vocal faculty of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. As researcher Nico has a particular interest in the unearthing and performance of neglected and undiscovered composers. In 2008 Nico performed a complete series of the

piano chamber music of Hungarian pianist-conductor-composer Ernst von Dohnányi at the Guildhall School or Music and Drama. Nico made the first recording of Polish pianist-composer André Tchaikowsky’s Piano Sonata, and features in the documentary Rebel of the Keys which focuses on Tchaikowsky’s life and the revival of his opera The Merchant of Venice at the Bregenz Festival. Nico performed some of Tchaikowsky’s piano works and songs in the UK, Poland and South Africa. At the moment Nico is in the final stages of his doctoral candidacy at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, focusing on the songs of Richard Hageman. In 2011 Nico founded the Richard Hageman Society (RHS) to focus scholarship and research into the work and life of this Dutch-born American composer. As director of the RHS Nico opened the Richard Hageman Aqueduct as well as unveiled a memorial plaque at Hageman’s birthplace in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. Nico widely performed Hageman’s songs, curated exhibitions of the RHS archives, and presented various lecture recitals and presentations at conferences and symposiums in the UK, the USA, and the Netherlands. www.nicodevilliers.com

James Orford – Piano James Orford is currently the Organ Scholar at both St Paul’s Cathedral and King’s College, London, having previously held scholarships at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, Truro Cathedral, and Dulwich College. He is also a prizewinning scholarship student at the Royal Academy of Music, where David Titterington is his teacher. An active performer, James has given many recitals and concerts across the UK in many notable venues, including St Paul’s, Westminster, and St Albans Cathedrals, several Cambridge college chapels, Christchurch and Bridlington Priories, the Duke’s Hall and the Royal Festival Hall. James also works extensively as a choral accompanist and has worked with many professional and amateur choirs. Engagements as an accompanist have taken him to many venues in the UK, France, Germany, Canada, the USA, and Nigeria, including Chartres Cathedral, Neresheim Abbey and Christchurch Cathedral, Montreal. His discography includes a Christmas disc with the Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital, which was critically acclaimed, and one with Chapel Choir of King’s College, London which is yet to be released. He has also appeared on the radio in both the UK and Germany. A pianist as well, James has worked mainly as an accompanist and regularly performs with both instrumental and vocal soloists, most notably Susan Bullock CBE and Ian Bostridge CBE. He has also won the accompanist prizes in the AESS Courtney Kenny

Song Competition, the John Kerr English Song Competition, and the Marjorie Thomas Art of Song Prize.

London Orchestra da Camera Percussion Ensemble London Orchestra da Camera was founded in 1995 and its Percussion Ensemble was formed alongside LOdaC at the same time. Its players, between them, work at the forefront of London’s orchestral, opera, West End, session and pop worlds. The players all work regularly with orchestras such as the BBC Concert, the BBC Symphony, English National Opera, the Philharmonia and the London Philharmonic. LOdaC and its various ensembles have a well-established association with Lewisham Choral Society and are delighted to appear with them this evening at the Southbank’s recently refurbished Queen Elizabeth Hall. Matthew Turner – Ensemble Leader Dan Gresson Karen Hutt Joe Richards Nick Turner – General Manager – www.londonorchestradacamera.co.uk

Krystal Tunnicliffe – Piano

Krystal Tunnicliffe is a Junior Fellow at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, a Britten-Pears Young Artist and a Wigmore Hall Chamber Tots Artist. Born in Melbourne, Krystal holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, studying with Glenn Riddle, a Masters of Performance (Piano Accompaniment, with distinction) at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, studying with Andrew West, and A.Mus.A. and L.Mus.A. diplomas (with distinction). She is also a graduate of the Franz-Schubert-Institut in Baden bei Wein, Austria. She has been a staff pianist at Millennium Performing Arts (London), Victorian College of the Arts (Melbourne) and Opera Scholars Australia.

Krystal’s recent and upcoming engagements include performances in London, Warwickshire, Cornwall, Wales and France (Notre Dame de Paris, Disneyland Paris, Eglise de la Madeleine), including recitals at Wigmore Hall, St-Martin-in-the-Fields, and LSO St Luke’s. She was the concerto soloist for Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue for the Chorus of Dissent’s fifth anniversary concert.

Travis Baker – Conductor A native of Melbourne, Australia, Travis Baker is considered to be one of the finest organists of his homeland. Travis is now based in England studying with world-renowned concert organist Dame Gillian Weir. His recital career takes him throughout the UK and mainland Europe, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. 2010 saw Travis touring as far afield as New Zealand and a six-week tour of the USA, which he toured again in 2015. His growing reputation led to an invitation to perform the 2011 Annual Opening Concert for the Organ Club of Great Britain and in 2016 the world premiere of a work commissioned by the Eric Thompson Trust. As a Certified Master Teacher, Estill Voice Teaching Systems, Travis has worked with Estill Voice Systems in London, Australia, New Zealand and Northern Ireland. He has worked with Paul Farrington on Opera New Zealand’s Summer School and will be working in New Zealand again in 2018. In late 2011, Travis was fortunate enough to work with Paul Farrington in training the cast of the feature film Quartet; in 2013/2014 he worked on the feature film The Theory of Everything. He holds the position of Director of Voice at Millennium Performing Arts College, working with renowned voice specialist Mary King. Travis is Director of Music for The Bromley Boy Singers and also works with the boys of Westminster Abbey and collaborates with Glyndebourne’s Education Department.

The Bromley Boy Singers

The award-winning Bromley Boy Singers – one of the UK's finest independent boys’ choirs – celebrated their 40th anniversary last year. Delivering first rate musical education, fun and unique opportunities and renowned for the technical quality and ability to captivate audiences, they perform in London, around the UK and abroad collaborating with, for example, Mary King and Bob Chilcott, in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall

and St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Under the expert leadership of Travis Baker, voice coach for Westminster Abbey School and Glyndebourne Education, they won Beckenham Festival’s youth choir category in 2014 & 2016 and were last year’s runners up in the Cornwall International Male Choir Festival’s youth competition, which they had won in 2015. For their anniversary tours to Cornwall and Paris – performing in Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Eglise de la Madeleine and at Disneyland – they added a string of challenging sacred works and popular classics to the world premiere of a special commission - that’s just how they like it!

Dan Ludford-Thomas – Conductor

Dan Ludford-Thomas enjoys a busy schedule as a conductor, chorus master and singing teacher in London. He directs a wide variety of choirs from professional ensembles, church choirs, chamber choirs and large symphonic choruses. He performs regularly in major concert venues across the country including Birmingham Symphony Hall and The Royal Albert Hall. In 2012 he conducted over 300 singers and the Forest Philharmonic in a performance of Handel's Messiah in the Royal Festival Hall. In 2014 he conducted over 200 singers in a performance of Verdi's Requiem in the Fairfield Halls, returning with the same forces to put on Mendelssohn's Elijah in 2016. In 2017 he conducted over 300 Singers and the London Mozart Players in a performance of Bach's B minor Mass at the Royal Festival Hall. Dan was the Chorus Master for the Choir of the Enlightenment, preparing them to sing Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Marin Alsop at the 2013 BBC Proms. He returned as Chorus Master for Marin, preparing the Choir of the Enlightenment to perform Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody and Triumphlied at the 2015 BBC Proms. In 2012 Dan worked as a choirmaster on BBC2’s The Choir: Sing While You Work and then became the Artistic Director of the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir enjoying success as the co-producer and musical director for the Choir's 2015 Christmas Number One 'Bridge Over You'. He returned in 2013 to work on BBC2’s The Choir: Sing While You Work series 2 as choirmaster to Citibank Choir with whom he has continued as the Musical Director; highlights include performing at the Hammersmith Apollo and a series of concerts in New York. In 2015 Dan worked behind the scenes as choirmaster for The Choir: Gareth Malone's Great Choir Reunion.

He is currently Head of Vocal Studies at Dulwich College, Musical Director of Concordia Chamber Choir, Musical Director of The Hackney Singers, Interim Artistic Director of the National Children’s Choir of Great Britain and Director of Music of Lewisham Choral Society.

Lewisham Choral Society

Lewisham Choral Society is one of London’s most popular community choirs, performing at local venues and major concert halls such as Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival and Queen Elizabeth Halls, the Cadogan Hall and the Fairfield Halls. It is a large, lively community-based choir, with over two hundred singers. Founded in 1950 by a group based at Lewisham’s parish church, it grew in size and ambition, marking its transformation by a change of name to Lewisham Choral Society in the early 1980s. The Society is a member of Making Music – the National Federation of Music Societies. It is a performing choir, staging four concerts a year, frequently collaborating with other choirs and taking part in other choral singing events when opportunities arise. Under the professional direction of Dan Ludford-Thomas and his deputy Nico de Villiers, the choir has a wide repertoire and performs music from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century, ranging from Tallis and Monteverdi to Arvo Pärt, Cecilia McDowall and Eric Whitacre.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN LEWISHAM CHORAL SOCIETY AS A SINGER? Lewisham Choral Society offers a warm welcome to new joiners. We are open to singers in all voice parts, but given the need to maintain a good balance across the choir we are targeting our recruitment at tenors and basses. Although we do not audition, the choir performs to a high standard and tackles some complex pieces which require a level of experience and musical ability. Rehearsals are relatively fast-paced, so may not suit complete beginners. We rehearse on Monday evenings from 8 to 10 at St Laurence’s

Church, 37 Bromley Road, Catford, SE6 2TS: five minutes’ walk from Catford and Catford Bridge stations; buses 47, 54, 136, 171, 199 and 208 stop outside. Parking is relatively easy on nearby residential streets and there is limited parking within the church grounds. Rehearsals for our autumn term start on Monday 3 September, continue until the autumn concert on 17 November and then run again until the Christmas concert on 15 December. We shall schedule additional rehearsals as and when necessary. Singers are welcome to join as new members on 3, 10 or 17 September.

Introduction & programme notes by Martin Bull Design of concert posters and flyers by Ben Leslie

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Lewisham Choral Society, Registered Charity Number 1040570 acknowledges the support of the

London Borough of Lewisham and is affiliated to Making Music

We hope you enjoyed tonight's performance! Please send us your feedback via…

www.lewishamchoralsociety.org.uk – Reviews page facebook.com/groups/lewishamchoralsociety

@lewishamchorsoc

South London links Lewisham Choral Society (LCS) has sung a number of Jonathan Dove’s works over the years and some of our members joined in the production of his Tobias & the Angel at the Young Vic Theatre to celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2006 and be part of the first commercial recording of the work in 2010. John C, John G & Andy

But we also discovered some more personal links between choir members and Jonathan: Jonathan, LCS tenor Andy and basses John C & John G went to the same school, the St Joseph’s Academy in Blackheath. Another South London link is with Walter de la Mare, the writer of the poem which Randall Thompson set in his Fare Well which we sing tonight. De la Mare was born in Maryon Road in Charlton, where his uncle was the first vicar of St Thomas’s Church. As a married man Walter moved to Mackenzie Road in Beckenham and then to Anerley. It was while he and his wife were living at Thornsett Road, Anerley that the poet wrote Fare Well, published in 1917 in a collection entitled The Sunken Garden & other poems. You can read more about these South London links on the news page of the choir’s website: https://lewishamchoralsociety.org.uk/news/

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