Download Spem in Alium release - Crouch End Festival Chorus

30th Season
Amazing a cappella
Tuesday 17 June 2014, 7.30pm | Southwark Cathedral, London
Saturday 21 June 2014, 7.30pm | Waltham Abbey, London
_________________________________________________________________________
PERFORMANCE AND BOOKING INFORMATION
Thomas Tallis
Ralph Vaughan Williams
John Tavener
Paul Anka (arr. Gough)
Bernard Hughes
Bruckner
Spem in Alium
Mass in G minor
Song for Athene
Annunciation
It Doesn’t Matter Anymore
Salve Regina*
Motets
*CEFC Commission and world premiere
Tuesday 17 June 2014, 7.30pm
Southwark Cathedral
Saturday 21 June 2014, 7.30pm
Waltham Abbey
Tickets:
Tel: 0844 736 5220
Email: [email protected]
Credit/debit card sales:
www.ticketsource.co.uk/cefc
(booking fee applies)
or on the door (cash/cheque only)
PERFORMERS
Crouch End Festival Chorus
David Temple conductor
_________________________________________________________________________
Crouch End Festival Chorus produces yet another stunning programme celebrating the
diversity of British choral music through the ages - and thirty years of exquisite singing by
one of the world’s best symphonic choirs.
Entirely a cappella, this concert will truly show off the choir’s talents, and there are two
opportunities to hear it in surroundings with the appropriate historic, religious, and acoustic
resonance: Southwark Cathedral, and Waltham Abbey.
Thomas Tallis’s magnificent 40-part motet Spem in Alium forms the centrepiece of the
concert. CEFC musical director David Temple commented that although the choir has
performed this complex and exacting piece many times, it remains a challenge and a
pleasure to perform it:
‘Despite its early date, Spem is harmonically intricate and rhythmically challenging, with eight
separate choirs of five parts equally prominent within the piece. When it all comes together,
it’s an absolute wonder to hear, especially in a church setting” Fittingly, Tallis had a personal
connection with Waltham Abbey, serving as organist there until the monastery was dissolved
in 1540.’
Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G Minor is a ‘mock Tudor’ masterpiece, a twentieth century
composition which deliberately looks back to the age of Tallis. Although its first performance
in 1922 was in a concert venue, Vaughan Williams always intended it to be sung in a
liturgical setting, and true to the composer’s intentions, CEFC will be bringing this a cappella
masterpiece back to church.
CEFC also pays tribute to another acclaimed British composer: Sir John Tavener, who died
in November last year. Inspired by his devotion to the Orthodox Church and influenced by its
musical traditions, Tavener is renowned for his exquisite religious compositions, and two are
performed here. Tavener wrote Song for Athene in 1993 in memory of family friend Athene
Hariades. The piece was famously sung at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997
and features poignant words written by Orthodox Nun Mother Thekla: ‘Alleluia. May Flights
of Angels Sing Thee to Thy Rest’. Annunciation, taken from Tavener’s larger work The
Protecting Veil, depicts a highly significant episode in the life of the Virgin Mary through
Tavener’s characteristically sublime harmonies.
An unlikely addition to a largely sacred programme is Paul Anka’s pop tune It Doesn’t Matter
Anymore, which, as many will know, was a big hit for Buddy Holly. However, very few will
have heard this up-beat number performed quite like this. Orlando Gough’s haunting, almost
abstract version of the original for four unaccompanied voice parts is bound to surprise, but
also to delight.
This programme represents the third concert of CEFC’s 30th season, and offers the third new
commission of the year, this time by young British composer Bernard Hughes. Salve Regina
celebrates traditional sacred music and by sculpting familiar harmonies into new, exciting but
equally satisfying shapes. It is sponsored by choir member Denise Haddon in memory of her
husband Paul Haddon, who sang with CEFC for many years.
With a cappella music, there’s truly nowhere to hide. But this choir of all choirs has the
quality, confidence and finesse to show off these wondrous pieces in all their glory.
For more information, please visit www.cefc.org.uk.
-ends-
NOTES TO EDITORS

Future concerts in CEFC’s anniversary season are:
Saturday 13 September, Palm Court, Alexandra Palace
A community Verdi Requiem
Tuesday 28 October, Barbican Hall
James McCarthy Malala, a CEFC Commission
Tippett, A Child of our Time

Crouch End Festival Chorus is one of the leading symphony choruses in the UK.
Under the musical direction of David Temple, CEFC promotes its own concerts and
collaborates with the finest orchestras, soloists, singers, composers, broadcasters and
recording companies.

In recent years, the singers of Crouch End Festival Chorus has performed with the
BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in Britten’s Ballad of Heroes, and is a regular
contributor to the BBC Proms, including 2012’s acclaimed performance of Schoenberg’s
Gurrelieder. In November 2013, CEFC joined the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
once again in a highly-praised performance of Britten’s War Requiem at the Royal Albert
Hall.
 CEFC’s own recent concert promotions have featured works by Britten, Spring
Symphony, and Will Todd, Ode to a Nightingale, a second performance of James
McCarthy’s 17 Days along with Orff’s Carmina Burana, music from the 1953 Coronation
performed at the Royal Festival Hall. Last October, CEFC performed Mendelssohn’s
Elijah starring renowned baritone Sir Willard White in the title role and in January 2014
premiered a CEFC commission by film and TV composer and dramatist, Murray Gold,
when my brother fell into the river…A second world premiere and new commission for
2014 was Will Todd’s Rage Against the Dying of the Light, a setting of Dylan Thomas’s
poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.


The choir regularly features on the BBC’s Doctor Who, including 2012’s Christmas
Special, and can be heard on the soundtrack of the supernatural thriller, The Awakening,
featuring Dominic West and Rebecca Hall. CEFC also appeared at the South Bank’s
Meltdown Festival with CEFC Patron Ray Davies in 2011, and in 2012 featured on the
hugely successful debut solo album by Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, with CEFC
singers taking part in his UK tour.
For more information about CEFC, please visit www.cefc.org.uk
Press Contacts:
Nicole Carmichael |07951 013955| [email protected]
Liz Sich|07956 612380| [email protected]