THE  MUSIC

 

For the concert on May 10 2008 in St Asaph's wonderful cathedral, the choir is to be accompanied by the BORDERS SINFONIA, led on this occasion by the celebrated Welsh violinist CERYS JONES. The challenging programme consists entirely of music composed within the last one hundred years.

Carmina Burana is the most popular of all choral works to have been composed in the twentieth century — but this is the first time that it has been performed in St Asaph Cathedral. Excerpts from Carl Orff's graphic celebration of the joys of life and the ups and downs of 'fortune' are continually to be heard as background for television programmes, advertisements and films. Truly the ultimate 'crossover' work, everyone will remember and savour the first time they hear it in a live performance — and come back again and again!

The concert commences with the rousing chorus 'Yr Utgorn' (The Trumpet) by the North Walian composer Matthews-Williams. The choir's more sensitive side will be to the fore in Wood's 'Expectans Expectavi' and Samuel Barber's beautiful song 'Sure on this Shining Night'.

The audience will hear the orchestra and a soprano vocalist in a rare live performance of Elena Kats-Chernin's popular but unusual 'Eliza Aria', a work, originally composed for a ballet, which is best known in this country as the music for the Lloyds TSB's current television advertising campaign.

To complement the programme Debussy's most famous instrumental solo 'Syrinx' and Takemitsu's dramatic 'Voice' will be performed by the orchestra's principal flautist.