During the pandemic, we have tried to find opportunities amid the uncertainty, with our creative online output in lockdown falling under the Isolation Creation umbrella. Here are some of our highlights from this series.
York Chapter House Youth Choir
Earlier this year we had the privilege of working with young singers from Chapter House Youth Choir, York. As part of our #IsolationCreation series, we produced a collaborative video of Britten’s A Hymn to the Virgin with them.
Find out more about YCHYC here
Valentine’s Day
We have wanted to make a video of My heart is like a singing bird by Sarah Rimkus since our first performance back in 2016. We asked artist Mair Elen Park to respond to the score and she created a series of hearts which interpret the music.
Find out more about the artwork
Truro Cathedral Choristers
Despite not being able to visit Cornwall to work with the choristers of Truro Cathedral as planned, we collaborated on two lockdown video projects, both of which were premiered on BBC Radio 3 Breakfast by Petroc Trelawny.
Our thanks to Josh who put the audio together and Owain who edited the huge video file that resulted from our first-ever double choir performance: Sir John Tavener’s Hymn to the Mother of God.
Our second video was Hosanna to the Song of David by Orlando Gibbons, kindly supported by Angel Early Music.
Night Prayer
Our first video created in isolation was a new work by our director, Owain Park, written specifically for groups unable to meet together to sing. Night Prayer sets the latin hymn ‘Te lucis ante terminum’, a text that has often opened our live concerts.
Collaboration with Matilda Lloyd
One of the highlights of 2019 was our Radiant Dawn collaboration with our friend, the fantastic trumpeter Matilda Lloyd. We came together to perform James Macmillan’s In Splendoribus Sanctorum, a fantastically atmospheric work, as part of our Isolation Creation series.
Not only was it delightful to work with Matilda virtually, but in October we were able to perform two concerts in London, featuring the world premiere of Richard Barnard’s Aura, co-commissioned by the artists in 2020.
Coronasolfege
During the first UK lockdown, we found ourselves glued to our screens as Héloïse Werner captured our imaginations with her coronasolfège videos. We thought it would be fun to try it out for ourselves – amazingly, Héloïse thought so too and so we commissioned coronasolfège for 6, which we are delighted to present as a video.
Sing with G6
For our first #singwithG6, we chose one of our favourite pieces, a sacred motet by Josef Rheinberger which the composer first penned in 1855 at the age of 15. It is perhaps his most famous choral work, which looks backward to the great sacred music of the Renaissance.