Cambridge Summer Music Festival 2023

Britten Sinfonia and the Bach Choir

Thursday 20 July, 7.30pm

King’s College Chapel

(By kind permission of the Provost and Fellows of King’s College)

The Britten Sinfonia
The Bach Choir
Singers from Addenbrookes Hospital
Katherine Gregory mezzo soprano
Jonathan McGovern baritone
Daniel Hyde organ
David Hill conductor

Maurice Duruflé Requiem (1961 version)
Thomas Tallis Hymn
Ralph Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Christopher Wood Aberfan
Richard Blackford Vision of a Garden

When beginning his famous Requiem, Maurice Duruflé was already working on a suite of organ works based on Gregorian plainchant. Shelving the project, he instead used the chants as the foundation for his new mass which, accordingly, quotes the Mass for the Dead extensively throughout. The 1961 version for chamber orchestra and organ is often described as the ideal version to hear this lyrical, contemplative and powerful work.

Christopher Wood’s Aberfan has been heard at the Last Night of the BBC Welsh Proms and is a moving tribute to the disaster of 1966.

Premiered at Festival Hall in October 2021, Richard Blackford’s Vision of a Garden reflects on the personal experiences of both patients and nursing staff in dealing with the Covid crisis, set to texts of two ‘ICU Diaries’ which contained messages of support written by the nurses who cared for Peter Johnstone in intensive care. The text is based on their words and tells the story of his delirium, crisis, and recovery from his time in Addenbrooke’s hospital.

We are thrilled to welcome singers from Addenbroke’s Hospital to join the Bach Choir and the Britten Sinfonia to perform Thomas Tallis’s Hymn, immortalised as the theme for Vaughan William’s masterpiece for string orchestra Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.

Generously supported by Christopher Wood

Tickets: £20, £30, £40 plus booking fee
(Half price for 25 years and under)

BOOKING OPENS for Friends of CSM 9.00am Friday May 5

GENERAL BOOKING opens 9.00am Friday May 12