PREMIERE
Sir John Tavener & Peter Berring
8pm Saturday, October 10
Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
Dear Choral Music Lovers,
Music Director Jon Washburn has asked me to send you a sneak preview of our upcoming concert, including a bit of information about the composers, works, and texts. This concert is a big one, featuring premieres of two major commissions for choir and orchestra: works “hot off the press”. It would be a tall order for me to communicate to you by email the full excitement I feel as these works take shape in rehearsal. As the composer’s vision – itself so long in the making – becomes clear to all of us, our own sense of anticipation grows. We are proud to be bringing these works to life, and to be bringing them to you, right here inVancouver.
Be sure to bring a friend when you join us on Saturday at the Chan Centre! Make an evening of it by beating the rush: free coffee will be available between 7:00 and 7:30 pm, and I will be offering a pre-concert talk at 7:15 in the adjoining Royal Bank Cinema. I look forward to sharing with you stories and background information on these remarkable composers and their music, and to hearing their works come fully alive for the first time!
Sincerely,
John William Trotter
Assistant Conductor, Vancouver Chamber Choir
SIR JOHN TAVENER
Sir John Tavener first came to public attention in 1968 with the premiere of his oratorio The Whale at the inaugural concert of the London Sinfonietta. The Beatles subsequently recorded this on their Apple label.
Although Sir John’s avant-garde style of the ‘70s contrasts with the contemplative beauty of his works for which he is best known, the seeds of the language he would later adopt were in evidence from an early stage. His conversion to the Orthodox Church in 1977 resulted from his growing conviction that Eastern traditions retained a primordial essence that the west had lost. Works such as The Lamb (1982), and the large-scale choral work Resurrection (1989) date from this period.
It was in 1989 that Sir John once again came firmly into the limelight, when the Proms premiere of The Protecting Veil introduced his music to a new audience. In 1997, the performance of Song for Athene at the close of Princess Diana’s funeral showed that the profound effect of his music reached far beyond just the concert-going public.
COMPOSER’S NOTE
In the Middle Ages, the title ‘Miroir’ designated works that reflected the traditional sciences – the science of love, the philosophical, the mystical, all indeed that is archetypal in our lives. Jean Biès is predominantly a poet, but also a perennial philosopher in the next generation on from Guènon and Schuon. I was drawn to the wonderfully rich tapestry that Biès’s poetry embraces, from the mystical to the erotic, to the child-like and the playful, and to the immense profundity of his thinking. I have set 22 of his poems for double choir, two string quartets and double bass.
Sir John Tavener, 2009
Tickets to PREMIERE are $18.50 - $39.50 and available at the Chan Centre box office and Ticketmaster. Rush tickets are available for $10 at the door one hour before the concert for youth under 26 and students (valid ID required for both). Visit ticketmaster.ca to purchase online or phone 604-280-3311.
For more information please contact:
Karen Seaboyer Manager, Communications & Production
kseaboyer@vancouverchamberchoir.com 604-738-6822, ext 24
1254 West 7th Avenue, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6H 1B6
www.vancouverchamberchoir.com
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