Advent Concert - The concert of the Tenebrae Choir
Conductor: Nigel Short
Featuring:
Ádám Tabajdi - organ
Program:
Vaughan Williams: This is the Truth
Joanna Forbes L'Estrange: Advent ‘O' Carol
Unknown composer: Angelus ad virginem
Adrian Peacock: Veni, veni Emmanuel
O radix Jesse: Gregorian chant
Vierne: Carillon de Westminster, Op. 54, No. 6
Bob Chilcott: Before the ice
Naylor: Vox dicentis
Wishart: Alleluia
Warlock: Benedicamus Domino
Joanna Marsh: In Winter's House
Darke: In the Bleak Midwinter
Sally Beamish: In the Stillness
Unknown composer-Willcocks: Sussex Carol
Levente Gyöngyösi: Te lucis ante terminum
Levente Gyöngyösi: O Maria, noli flere
Bob Chilcott: The Shepherd's Carol
Unknown composer-Simon Preston: I Saw Three Ships
Unknown composer-Humphris: Twelve Days of Christmas
Joseph Phibbs: Sleep, Little One, Sleep
Nigel Short: We Wish You a Merry Christmas
One of the world's greatest vocal cultures developed over the centuries in Great Britain. It is a widespread view that not only is English grass greener than elsewhere, singing voices in England are also more luscious than anywhere else in the world. British vocal culture also has a speciality: the ensemble genres and choir music. Providing us with a taste of this will be one of the most noted English choirs in a concert that is also uniform in terms of choice of theme, as everything at this performance will be related to the period of anticipation leading up to the Christmas holiday. For our pleasure, they will be singing, along with works by many British composers both old and new, two choral pieces by our fellow Hungarian Levente Gyöngyösi.
Who is it that might be truly suitable for directing a vocal ensemble or choir? Someone who was himself previously a member of a vocal ensemble or choir and therefore carries in his vocal chords the visceral knowledge needed to lead groups like these in an initiated fashion. Nigel Short, founder and leader of the Tenebrae Choir, is one such artist. He learned to sing as a student at the Royal College of Music before going on to join groups like the Tallis Scholars, the Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral choirs and the King's Consort, as a countertenor. He has also taken the theatre stage as a member of the English National Opera and Opera North. In 1993, at the age of 27, he joined the King's Singers, where he started to develop the idea of founding his own larger choir offering more passionate singing and a more theatrical style. This idea would evolve into the Tenebrae Choir, launched in 2001, which at its Müpa Budapest Advent concert will primarily be performing both old and new English works, including some reworkings of traditional melodies. Collaborating in the concert will be the noted young Hungarian organist Ádám Tabajdi.
Presented by: Müpa Budapest
