What better way to start the year than with a concert focused on new beginnings? This hour-long recital takes our audience on a musical journey reflecting on the biblical story of creation, with works echoing the seven days of creation. Our programme, directed by Associate Musical Director Jessica Norton, features popular and lesser-known works, ranging from William Harris’s glorious Faire is the Heaven to Granville Bantock’s Sea Sorrow and John Tavener’s The Lamb. It culminates with In The Beginning, a beautiful and rarely heard work by Aaron Copland for solo voice and choir that sets the Genesis creation story with expressive and innovative word-painting.
The concert takes place in the beautiful 18th-century surroundings of St George’s Church, Bloomsbury. Admission is free and unticketed, with a retiring collection.
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth…
William Harris – Faire is the Heaven
First day: Light
Eric Whitacre – Lux aurumque
Second day: The sky
Michael Tippett – Dance, Clarion Air
Third day: The seas and the land
arr. Jonathan Quick – Loch Lomond
Granville Bantock – Sea Sorrow
Fourth day: The sun, moon and stars
Einojuhani Rautavaara – La luna asoma
Fifth day: The birds and fish
Charles Villiers Stanford – The Bluebird
Sixth day: Animals and humans
John Tavener – The Lamb
Carlo Gesualdo – O vos omnes
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good…
Aaron Copland – In the Beginning