British Composers for our Summer Concerts 2016

The programme chosen by the Maidstone Singers for their two summer concerts this year embraces major sacred works by two of Britain’s leading composers – Bob Chilcott’s ‘Requiem’ and Karl Jenkins’ ‘Stabat Mater’.

ALL SAINTS CHURCH, MAIDSTONE         Sunday 19 June at 7.30 p.m.

ST MARY’S CHURCH, WEST MALLING   Saturday 25 June at 7.30 p.m.

Composer and conductor Bob Chilcott (born 1955) has been steeped in the British choral tradition since he was a boy chorister. A former member of The King’s Singers, he is now one of the UK’s most prolific and creative choral composers, writing appealingly direct and accessible music with memorable melodies reminiscent of John Rutter at his best. Following the success of his first major work ‘Salisbury Vespers’, Chilcott wrote his Requiem in 2010. Scored for SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) choir, soprano and tenor soloists and small instrumental ensemble and with words from the ‘Missa pro defunctis’ and the Book of Common Prayer, the work gives a new slant to established texts: a beautiful setting of ‘Thou knowest, Lord’ sits alongside the powerful ‘Offertorio’, driving ‘Sanctus’, and enchanting ‘Pie Jesu’. Deserving of a place among the canon of previous settings, the work is characterized by a gentle yet uplifting atmosphere clearly modelled on Fauré’s Requiem. This is likely to be the first time the piece has been performed in Maidstone and the surrounding area.

Sir Karl Jenkins was born in Wales in 1944. He studied music at Cardiff University and then at the Royal Academy of Music. Jenkins initially made his mark in the Jazz world of the 1960s and 1970s when he co-founded the group Nucleus. Playing regularly at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, the group went on to record three albums and win first prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival. However, his classical work ‘Adiemus’, which was commissioned for a television commercial, topped the classical charts around the globe and brought him to the world’s attention. Jenkins has won many awards in the field of advertising music, but it is for his concert repertoire that he has achieved the greatest critical acclaim. In 2010 he was awarded the CBE and was given a knighthood in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours list “for composing and crossing musical genres.”

Stabat Mater was composed in 2008, and is based on the 13th-century Roman Catholic prayer Stabat Mater dolorosa. Like much of Jenkins’ earlier work, the piece incorporates both traditional Western music (orchestra and choir) with ethnic instruments and vocals – this time focusing on the Middle East. Jenkins’ work extends across twelve movements, six of which use texts other than the original poem. Stabat Mater focuses on the suffering of Mary, but unlike earlier adaptations of the text, Jenkins incorporates the language of the period, with lines sung in Aramaic and early Arabic. The first movement is actually an extended variation of a piece from his ‘Adiemus’. The piece received its world premiere in Liverpool Anglican Cathedral on Saturday 15 March 2008. It is a wonderfully exciting and evocative piece both to perform and to listen to. To quote the famous singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa:   “I adore Karl’s compositions. From this quiet, gentle human being, comes the most amazing, haunting music, that is instantly recognizable, and loved across the world.”