This online concert showcases two pieces of contrasting 20th-century ballet music.

This concert opens with a work by Errollyn Wallen, Horseplay. Gramophone praised Wallen as: “an influential figure and inspirational role model … a leading figure in today’s classical music world.”

Horseplay is a ballet in four movements. Each movement has its own colour and energy, inspired by the idea of a horse as archetype.

A Joffrey original in collaboration with choreographer Cathy Marston, "Bertha" explores the psyche of Bertha Mason, the love-scorned antagonist of the novel "Jane Eyre."

Music by Errollyn Wallen
Score Performed By:
Sara Trickey (Violin)
Rosie Bergonzi (Handpan)

Direction: Cathy Marston, Tim Whalen
Choreography/Story: Cathy Marston
Film Featuring Joffrey Artists:
Christine Rocas - Bertha
Dylan Gutierrez - Rochester
Jeraldine Mendoza - Jane Eyre/Young Bertha

Rehearsal Director: Suzanne Lopez
Costumes: Patrick Kinmonth
Produced By: The Joffrey Ballet, Big Foot Media
Music Recorded and Mixed By: Gerry O’Riordan, at The Soundhouse Studios, London

The story of Dido and Aeneas didn’t end with Dido’s death. Errollyn Wallen takes the story forward, interweaving a full performance of Purcell’s great tragedy with her imaginative new partner-piece.

‘Remember me, but ah! Forget my fate' sings Dido at the end of Purcell’s opera. But life isn’t quite as easy as that, and some memories have a destiny of their own. Set several years after the Carthaginian queen’s death, Dido’s Ghost finds Dido’s sister Anna abandoned on the shores of Aeneas’s new kingdom, igniting a murderous jealously in Aeneas’s wife Lavinia – and as events play out, its characters confront a past that refuses to fade.

Errollyn Wallen’s new opera, based on a tale by Roman poet Ovid, embraces and complements Purcell’s original, which is performed in its entirety as the centrepiece of a drama that is both old and new. Performed by the period instruments of the Dunedin Consort, past blurs into present and memory becomes emotion in this ambitious and poignant new commission.

French and English Music for Choir and Organ

The BBC Singers and their former chief conductor, David Hill, are joined by organist Thomas Trotter for a concert of English and French Choral music. Bookending the concert are two of the great works for choir and organ; Louis Vierne's Messe Solennelle and Gerald Finzi's Lo, the full final sacrifice. Presented by Petroc Trelawny.

Recorded in St Peter's Church, Eaton Square, London, on Friday 4 June 2021.

LOUIS VIERNE Messe Solennelle
MAURICE DURUFLE Prélude et Fugue sur le nom d'Alain, Op 7
IJOHN GARDNER Five Dances
GHISLAINE RECCE-TRAPP The great life eternal
ERROLLYN WALLEN Pace
JUDITH BINGHAM/SAMUEL WESLEY The darkness is no darkness/Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace
GERALD FINZI Lo, the full final sacrifice

Listen on BBC Radio 3 on Tuesday 8 June and for 30 days on BBC Sounds.

Programme to include:

ERROLLYN WALLEN - Nnenna

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LATE NIGHT LIEDER with The Hermes Experiment

Programme to include:

Errollyn Wallen gun, gun, gun
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Works performed by the students of RNCM, followed by a discussion with Jessica Duchen.

Greenwich Variations
Giulia Contaldo (Piano)

Red (Homage to Rodrigo)
Rafael Onyett (Guitar)

Dervish
Sinead O’Halloran (Cello), Maria Luc (Piano)

Another America: Air
Philip O’Connor (Tenor), Maria Luc (Piano)

The Errollyn Wallen Songbook
Eleni Georgiou, Amy Webber (Voice), Misha Tyshkul (Piano)

Daedalus
Amy Webber (Voice), TBC (Piano)
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“Wake Up! Wake Up! A Choral Tapestry Honoring Our Earth” is a a free outdoor concert, with an 18-voice professional choir directed by Malcolm J. Merriweather. The program will feature a preview of choral excerpts of music composed by the internationally acclaimed British composer Errollyn Wallen and five time Emmy-winning composer Jeff Beal, with a libretto by Diana Wege, from Earth Requiem (2020), a newly commissioned four-movement symphony that is one part of a multidisciplinary art project by the artist Diana Wege, titled Earth Requiem. More information may be found by visiting www.earthrequiem.org, or contacting earthrequiem.project@gmail.com.
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Spitalfields Music Festival 2021

Errollyn Wallen - Festival Curator

Simon Halsey CBE (Conductor)
London Symphony Chorus
City of London Sinfonia
Chris Glynn (Piano)

Programme to include:

ERROLLYN WALLEN After Winter *WORLD PREMIERE
HOWARD GOODALL Never Forget
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Héloïse Werner (Soprano)
Kit Downes (Organ)
Colin Alexander (Cello)

Each performer will offer around twenty minutes of their own solo works, written since March 2020, and the programme will also feature five short text pieces written especially for the occasion by Errollyn Wallen, Shiva Feshareki, Jasmin Kent Rodgman, Jonathan Cole and Love Ssega.
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A new opera incorporating Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas

Sung in English with side-titles.

Libretto by Wesley Stace

John Butt (Conductor)
Frederic Wake-Walker (Director)
Anna Jones (Designer)
Ben Pickersgill (Lighting Designer)

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Idunnu Muench - Dido/Anna
Matthew Brook - Aeneas
Nardus Williams - Belinda
Jessica Gillingwater - Spirit/Lavinia
Tim Dickinson Sorcerer/Elymas

Dunedin Consort
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Buxton International Festival co-commissioned production in partnership with the Barbican Centre, Mahogany Opera, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale, and Dunedin Consort.
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A new opera incorporating Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas

Libretto by Wesley Stace

John Butt (Conductor)
Frederic Wake-Walker (Director)
Anna Jones (Designer)

***

Golda Schultz - Dido/Anna
Matthew Brook - Aeneas
Nardus Williams - Belinda
Allison Cook - Lavinia
Henry Waddington - Sorcerer

Dunedin Consort
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Co-commissioned by Edinburgh International Festival, Dunedin Consort and Mahogany Opera, the Barbican Centre, Buxton International Festival and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale
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Sarah Daramy-Williams (Violin)
Natalia Senior-Brown (Viola)

Programme to include:

Errollyn Wallen - Five Postcards
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