SURROUND SOUND PLAYLIST: MORE PROGRAMME INFORMATION AND CLASSICAL MUSIC LINKS IN YOUR AREA

A very warm welcome to this Surround Sound Playlist concert. I’m pretty sure you won’t have been to anything like this before, and of course we really hope you like it.

All in all, it’s an attempt to offer a live experience of many kinds of classical music that just wouldn’t be possible in a conventional concert hall. With their rows of seats and single stage, there’s a necessary formality and inflexibility in those concert settings – because unless there’s a major reset on stage, what you get from beginning to end tends to be one kind of concert, be it orchestral, choral, chamber or solo.

Tonight is more like a live version of drivetime radio or an eclectic playlist on your phone. It requires a lot of (really fun) planning, to work out what can go where, and what will best precede or follow something else. With all the musicians assembled here tonight, there are lots of wonderful options musically. It’s a taster menu, rather than a three course meal. Bon appetit!

Meurig Bowen

CEO & Artistic Director, Britten Sinfonia.

Britten Sinfonia

Tenebrae

Amy Dickson

Joseph Tawadros

Chelmsford Singers, Waltham Singers, Thundersley Brass Band (in Chelmsford)

Ely Choral Society, Soham Comrades brass band (in Ely)

Peterborough Sings!, Stamford Brass Band (in Peterborough)

Copland
Drums and brass herald the start of proceedings. This is it. Attention please. Written for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1943, in response to the entry of the United States in World War II. Prog giants Emerson Lake and Palmer gave it a different, stadium rock treatment in the early 70s.

Lauridsen
An exquisite modern classic for unaccompanied choir, written in 1994 by the West Coast American Lauridsen. Technically, a Christmas carol, but too beautiful just for December.

Marcello
Another gorgeous piece of calm, this time from the Italian baroque, and the Venetian nobleman Marcello. JS Bach rated this piece so highly that he turned it into a harpsichord concerto. Purists may hate the idea of a saxophone playing this piece, but we reckon Amy Dickson will do it proud.

Umoja
African-American composer, Valerie Coleman, is from Louisville, Kentucky. She’s a flautist and founder of Imani Winds, the US’s first global majority wind quintet. Umoja is the Swahili word for “unity” and is the first day in seven in the African-American celebration of Kwanzaa.

Tawadros improv
The oud is a stunning looking pear-shaped, fretless stringed instrument from North Africa and the Middle East - the western lute evolved from its medieval Islamic cousin. Joseph Tawadros was born in Egypt, brought up in Australia, and now lives in London. His work, as we’ll hear in all three pieces tonight, is an intoxicating mix of east and west.

Roche
Raised in Wales, and now living in Ely, David John Roche was one of Britten Sinfonia’s Magnum Opus composers in 2024. He’s an electric guitarist and brass bander, and we commissioned him specially for these Surround Sound Playlist concerts to write a piece for orchestra and brass band in a big, resonant space. We hope you like it!

Allegri
Priest and singer Gregorio Allegri was associated with Rome’s Sistine Chapel throughout his life. His setting of Psalm 51 is famous for its stratospheric soprano lines, and it’s a piece that Tenebrae are rather well known for: their Youtube recording has been viewed over 24 million times. Be transported by it live in this space tonight.

Telemann
A lovely little movement for four violins from Bach and Handel’s compatriot and near contemporary, Telemann. Leading into…

Zadok
The biblical account of the anointing of Solomon by the priest Zadok has been heard at every English coronation since 973. Handel set it to music for the coronation of his German compatriot, George II, in 1727, and it’s been a glorious fixture in every coronation since. (Also closely imitated as the Champions League TV jingle.)

Susato
More drums and brass, and a brilliant, festive dance from renaissance Benelux to get things going again.

Ligeti and Bartok
You’re the first to hear this mash-up of central European folk tunes for wind quintet and strings. Alternating them like this hasn’t been tried before, but with their shared musical DNA and dirt-under-the-fingernails energy, we thought we’d give it a go anyway.

Prokofiev
The whole of Prokofiev’s ballet score to Romeo and Juliet is masterly. This particular movement has become just a little bit better known than the rest of it because of a certain reality TV show involving apprentices, awkward team tasks and humiliating exits.

Battaglia
Premiered in 1711, Rinaldo was one of Handel’s earliest and biggest operatic hits for the London stage. Set at the time of the First Crusade, the ‘hit single’ from this tale of love, war and redemption was the aria ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’, but this short orchestral depiction of battle is a thrilling burst of energy too.

Shaw
This lovely setting of Psalm 84 by the evermore admired composer Caroline Shaw finishes with the singers evoking the sounds of autumn rain. In this psalm’s words, Shaw says, ‘there’s yearning for a home that feels very relevant today.’

The Irish Blessing
Joyce Eilers-Bacak uses the traditional song May the Road Rise Up to Meet You to create a lyrical showpiece for brass band.  

Stars
Stars, a setting of words by Sara Teasdale from 2011, features tuned wine glasses as a glistening accompaniment to the glowing simplicity of ‘beating hearts of fire’ seen overhead on a still, dark night. Radiant and magical.

She moved…
Amy Dickson intones alone this tender Irish folk song. Last night, she came to me; she came softly in. So softly she came, that her feet made no din. And she stepped closer to me, and this, she did say: "It will not be long, love, 'til our wedding day."

I was glad
We finished the first half with one Coronation ‘banger’, and we finish the concert with the other one – written by Parry for the 1902 coronation of Edward VII, and a blazing choral favourite ever since.