Temenos 08 a celebration of the music of John Tavener
Louth Contemporary Music Society (LCMS) will host a major celebration of the work of Sir John Tavener in its Temenos Festival from Friday 24 to Sunday 26 October 2008 in venues in Louth Ireland. Festival highlights include the first Irish performance by Anonymous 4 with the Irish string quartet Rothko 4, the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste and a world premiere of John Tavener’s O My People performed by Polyphony conducted by Stephen Layton, plus Patricia Rozario and the Oriel Trio in Tavener’s Yeat’s influenced work To a Child Dancing in the Wind. ”Temenos” is a Greek word for sacred space and it is apt that the festival focuses on Tavener who is strongly influenced by sacred and spiritual texts.
There will be a world premiere of a new work O My People by John Tavener. Commissioned by Eamonn Quinn for Louth Contemporary Music Society with funding from the Arts Council of Ireland/ An Chomhairle Ealaíon, this moving Byzantine text will be performed by one of the world’s best choirs performed by Polyphony conducted by Stephen Layton at St. Patrick’s Dundalk on 25 October 08. Layton is renowned for his exceptional musicianship and for the vitality of his performances. In recent collaborations with composers, Layton has given first performances of music by Sir John Tavener, Arvo Pärt and Thomas Adès. His bold realisation of Tavener’s epic seven-hour vigil The Veil of the Temple, a new departure in British choral music ,met with outstanding acclaim both in London and in New York. Polyphony will also perform a number of other Tavener’s choral works in Dundalk including the Lamb and Song for Athene which was performed at Princess Diana’s funeral.
A festival highlight will be the performance by the Ulster Orchestra conducted for the first time by one of the world’s most respected conductors Tõnu Kaljuste at St. Peter’s Church of Ireland Drogheda on 24 October 2008. Founder of the highly esteemed Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Taillinn Chamber Orchestra, Tõnu Kaljuste has gained international fame with his diversified repertoire, and has developed close working relationships with contemporary composers such as Giya Kancheli, Arvo Pärt and Veljo Tormis. It is a also a major coup for LCMS to have the Ulster Orchestra, Northern Ireland’s only full-time symphony orchestra and one of the major orchestras in the United Kingdom, performing at the Temenos festival.
Latvian cellist Marta Sudraba, will perform the Protecting Veil with the Ulster Orchestra on Friday 24 October 2008 in St. Peter’s Church of Ireland, Drogheda. One of Tavener’s most famous works, The Protecting Veil for solo cello and string orchestra was commissioned by the BBC in 1989. Perhaps no other piece of modern classical music has caused such a stir since its debut (in the 1989 Proms) as this work has. The inspiration of the piece comes from the Orthodox feast of the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God, which commemorates the the apparition of Mary the Theotokos in the early 10th century at the Blachernae Palace church at Vlacherni, Constantinople. ‘The Protecting Veil’ provides an Ikon in music of the mother of God during her life.The piece is profoundly beautiful.
Marta Sudraba never ceases to thrill and amaze her many listeners and fans. Sudraba, one of the best and brightest musicians of her generation, has worked with Gidon Kremer and plays the cello in his Grammy nominated orchestra Kremerata Baltica. Marta Sudraba will also perform Svyati (O Holy One) with Polyphony in Dundalk on 25 October 2008. Svyati focuses on the mysticism of this great contemporary composer and the rich choral sonorities of music from the Russian Orthodox Church that inspired him.
Irish Chamber Orchestra violinist Ioana Petcu-Colan makes a welcome return to perform Tavener’s Dhyana with the Ulster Orchestra on the 24 October 2008.
The Temenos festival also explores Tavener’s deep connection with Irish poet WB Yeats with performances of two Yeats’ influenced works. Derry mezzo soprano Doreen Curran, RTE’s 1998 Young Singer of the Future and a graduate of the National Opera Studio, will open the festival with a performance of Tavener’s Supernatural Songs with the Ulster Orchestra on 24 October 2008 in St.Peter’s Church of Ireland Drogheda. The songs constitute one of the composer’s finest achievements.
The Yeats’ connection is further explored with Patricia Rozario and the Oriel Trio’s performance of Tavener’s To a Child Dancing in the Wind, on Saturday 25 October 2008 in St.Patrick’s Dundalk. Bombay-born soprano Patricia Rozario has a long and deep relationship with Sir John Tavener so that she sings Tavener’s music with conviction and understanding. Patricia Rozario’s voice and artistry has inspired several of the world’s leading composers to write for her, most notably Arvo Pärt and Sir John Tavener. Renowned Irish musicians Cliona Doris (harp), Cian O’Duill ( viola) and Vourneen Ryan ( flute) come together for the first time as the Oriel Trio for this performance.
Another festival highlight will be the first Irish performance of US early music group Anonymous 4 performing with the Irish string quartet Rothko 4 in St. Peter’s Church of Ireland, Drogheda on 26 October 2008. Renowned for their almost unearthly voices, the four women of Anonymous 4 sing with an angelic harmony. Anonymous 4 has often reached out into the realm of contemporary music, and has premiered works by Peter Maxwell Davies, John Tavener, Steve Reich, and Richard Einhorn. Anonymous 4’s award-winning recordings have attained unprecedented popularity, rising to the top of Billboard’s classical chart, and selling almost 1.5 million copies worldwide. Rothko 4 string quartet are made up of Irish Chamber Orchestra stalwarts: Cliodhna Ryan, Ioana Petcu Colan, Ben Rogerson and Cian O’Duill.
A leading figure in the world of 20th-century British music, Sir John Tavener’s choral and orchestral works reflect his deeply spiritual outlook and distinctive musical voice. He is perhaps best known to worldwide audiences for his Song for Athene, which was performed at the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997, his Protecting Veil which was a world wide selling cd, and his vast, 7-hour work, The Veil of the Temple, was featured in the 2004 Lincoln Center Festival.
Temenos 2008 is presented by Louth Contemporary Music Society in association with the Louth County Arts Office, Dundalk Arts Office, the Drogheda Arts Office and the Irish Times.
Temenos 2008 is funded by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon under its one off project scheme and financially supported by the Dundalk Arts Office, the Louth Arts Office and the Drogheda Arts Office.
Tickets €30 are only on sale from the 29 August 2008 from:
www.centralticketbureau.com.
Telephone Bookings ROI: 0818 205 205; UK 0870 850 2896,
International :00 353 1 4487777
The Central Ticket Bureau, Liberty Hall, 33 Eden Quay, Dublin 1
Programme available here: programme
Philip Glass in St.Patrick’s Dundalk
Dublin Guitar Quartet and Philip Glass
Philip Glass Photos Dundalk. All Photos credited to M&E design
Heavenly Sounds of Glass Overflow in Cathedral Setting
Philip Glass St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dundalk
An almost reverential silence fell on the capacity cathedral congregation with the arrival at the altar of one of the most influential composers of our time, and one whose music is anything but minimalist.Philip Glass has wrongly earned this description due to his development of his own repetitive chordal structure, but this performance confirmed the multiplicity of layers beneath such superficial simplicity.
The evening opened with Glass taking a side seat to enjoy a bravura performance by Romanian violinist Ioana Petcu Colan of the technically imposing ‘Knee Play #2′.And she was even more captivating when subsequently duetting with the maestro himself, demonstrating a deep connection. And Gerard McChrystal’s soulful soprano saxophone made for another empathetic partner.
Glass himself injected true dynamic verve into the performance. For someone whose music packs such a resonant emotional punch, the man himself is surprisingly chipper. The official programme was simply a skeleton for Glass to work off and there were both changes to the order of pieces and unexpected additions.Glass necessarily disposed of the interval in order to fit everything in and maintain the spell he cast over this most enraptured audience.
The Dublin Guitar Quartet’s extraordinary interpretation of ‘Company’ added a new dimension and freshness to this instantly identifiable sound. Introducing this work, Glass reminisced about how he managed to persuade the author of the original novella, one Samuel Beckett, to include music in the stage version.”He released a set of elaborate instructions, none of which I understood. But he never complained about the finished product, so I suppose he must have liked it.”
He returned for an encore with Petcu Colan and they performed a new work entitled simply ‘France’. From the first chord, one was transported to the terrace of a little French bistro. His ability to create such three-dimensional pictures through music is just one of the reasons this audience whooped and whistled as they gave him the kind of standing ovation more befitting a rock concert than a cathedral.-
By Sophie Gorman Saturday Irish Independent July 19 2008
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/music/heavenly-sounds-of-glass-overflow-in-cathedral-setting-1435732.html
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