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Six days in London

Mid-December is a great time to be in London, where Christmas is taken very seriously. It’s impossible to navigate around the city without bumping into carol singers, twinkling lights or “drinks parties”, and there’s plenty of sumptuous music going on. I heard the choir of Westminster Abbey sing a Christmas concert to a sold out crowd of about 2000, a dress rehearsal at Handel House of Messiah performed by my friends Trevor and Gitai, I Fagiolini singing “The Little Match Girl Passion” by David Lang at the Spitalfields festival, Paul MacCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort with Britten’s “A boy was… Read More »Six days in London

The Portinari Nativity

THE PORTINARI NATIVITY        Cori Martin (2012) The ruined stable’s open to the air, a stage on which the rustic scene plays out. Here stumbling shepherds fix their gaping faces, their brothers rushing from the hill behind where heavenly hosts have choired goodwill to them. More angels, anxious, hover in the roof or roost below in feathered flocks. All keep respectful distance, hanging back, the uncertain parents, too, unmoving. All awestruck, dumb with wonder, cluster in a perfect circlet round the little one. He wears no swaddling clothes; bare skin’s exposed to winter’s chill. Only his holy glow… Read More »The Portinari Nativity

Winter Nights II

The premiere of a new piece is always an exciting event, but let me tell you, for a “modern” composer, it’s actually more thrilling when your work gets a second performance. It means you were not totally off base when you wrote the thing, and some courageous conductor will risk performing an unknown piece that the audience has never heard of. Mark Vuorinen is the brave conductor who undertakes this task in Kitchener-Waterloo this Sunday afternoon, with the Grand Philharmonic Choir and orchestra, and my old friend Michael Colvin as the tenor soloist. Winter Nights is a four movement cantata… Read More »Winter Nights II