Tallis Festival 2018
Brighton Early Music Festival Consort of Voices
The New Music Players
Brighton Early Music Festival Consort of Voices 2
Tallis Festival
Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts 8 - 11 Feb 2018
Booking: http://attenboroughcentre.com/
Co-curated by Music Dept, MFM, and ACCA
Co-promoted with Centre for Creative and Performing Arts & Sussex Humanities Lab
Through world premieres of new works and numerous live performances our TALLIS FESTIVAL at the Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts will ask what is the nature and influence of one of the greatest English vocal composers of all time, Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585).
Tallis's music is endlessly fascinating and an incredibly rewarding sound-world. Our Tallis Festival's distinctive approach is to explore his music, partly by performing it of course, but also by commissioning and premiering brand new creative responses to Tallis from composers across our local region and the UK. We are thrilled to be working with some leading community orchestras from our region, including USSO and Lewes Concert Orchestra, as well as with one of the country's leading contemporary music ensembles. We will be using Syncphonia tablet technology developed at Sussex to help create a mass-instrumental performance of Tallis's music on Friday night. The festival will close with a showpiece performance by our friends from Brighton Early Music Festival, directed by Deborah Roberts, joined by the Lacock Scholars, directed by Greg Skidmore and including a live performance of Tallis's famous and iconic 40 part motet 'Spem in Alium', and compositions by other leading composers from his own time. We are bringing in academics at the cutting edge of music technology, musical composition, sound, and cultural studies, to debate the impact of early vocal music on modern and technologically engaged ears. The Tallis Festival promises to be full of artistic discoveries, rewards and surprises, and will connect innovative creative and academic research with community ensembles and internationally recognised musicians.
Ed Hughes, Prof of Composition in Music, MFM, Sussex University.
TALLIS FESTIVAL
Wed 7 Feb 2018
1pm to 2pm Recital Room, Falmer House 120
TALK: In Search of Thomas Tallis. Prof Ed Hughes and musicians Jason Hazael, Lee Westwood, Eleanor Clapp, Joe Paxton and Hugh Chambers introduce and discuss Tallis's music and what it means to composers today.
Thursday 8 Feb 2018
TALK: 7.15pm Gardner Tower. Pre-concert talk with the composers including the Queen Mary/Kingston University AI team, chaired by Dr Thor Magnusson (Senior Lecturer in Music Technology, MFM, Sussex)
CONCERT: 8pm Auditorium.
The New Music Players
Rowland Sutherland, flute
Fiona Cross, clarinet
Susanne Stanzeleit, violin
Michael Atkinson, cello
Richard Casey, piano
One of the country's leading contemporary music groups brings a programme of creative responses to the world of the great 16th century English composer Thomas Tallis, including from artistic director Ed Hughes, Benjamin Oliver, Rowland Sutherland, plus Sussex composers Lee Westwood, Jason Hazael, Eleanor Clapp and Hugh Chambers, and an AI generated composition from Bob Sturm (Queen Mary) and Oded Ben-Tal (Kingston University), based on machine readings of Tallis's musical output.
Programme:
Benjamin Oliver, BmB (wp)
Rowland Sutherland, Tallis composition (wp)
Jason Hazael, Tallis Timestretch (wp)
Lee Westwood, n.t.l.x (wp)
Eleanor Clapp, O nata lux (wp)
Hugh Chambers, Miserere Nostri (wp)
Oded Ben-Tal, Between the Lines (wp)
Joseph Paxton, Tallis composition (wp)
Ed Hughes, Tallis [in ieiunio et fletu] (wp)
(wp) = world premiere
Friday 9 Feb 2018
TALK: 7.15pm Gardner Tower.
Talk with the composers and the Syncphonia team, chaired by Alice Eldridge (Lecturer in Music & Music Technology, MFM, Sussex)
CONCERT: 8pm Auditorium.
University of Sussex Symphony Orchestra
Lewes Concert Orchestra
Conducted by Ian McCrae
Two orchestras, including the university's own symphony, join forces for a powerful reading of Ralph Vaughan Williams's classic string work 'Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis'. Plus new works inspired by Tallis from today's composers, including Jamie Longcake and Ian McCrae. The concert ends with a large-scale eclectic instrumental performance of a new arrangement of Tallis's famous 40 part motet Spem in Alium using 'Syncphonia', the synchronised computer tablets developed by a team at Sussex University's music department.
Programme
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis
Ian McCrae, Notus ficta (wp)
Jamie Longcake, Tallis/Agnus Dei (wp)
Thomas Tallis, Tallis' Canon (arranged for orchestra) (wp)
Thomas Tallis, Spem in Alium (mass instrumental)
Sunday 11 Feb 2018
TALK: 7.15pm Gardner Tower. Pre concert talk with Deborah Roberts (Director of the Brighton Early Music Festival) and Prof David Hendy (Prof of Media & Cultural History, MFM, Sussex) chaired by Prof Ed Hughes (Prof of Composition, MFM, Sussex)
CONCERT: 8pm Auditorium. Inspired by Tallis - first generation
BREMF Consort of Voices - Deborah Roberts director
The Lacock Scholars - Greg Skidmore director
University of Sussex Chamber Choir
Music of Tallis, including the iconic 40 part motet Spem in alium, and the first generation of composers to be influenced by him: John Sheppard, Robert White, William Byrd
Performed by two distinguished vocal consorts, the Brighton Early Music Festival's Consort of Voices, and the Lacock Scholars
Thomas Tallis c.1505 -1585, Miserere nostri (tutti); Dum transisset (LS)
John Sheppard c.1515-1558, Jesu salvator saeculi (BCV with LS chant)
Tallis, Lamentations (part 1) (LS)
William Byrd 1539/40-1623, Ne irascaris Domine (BCV)
Byrd, Infelix ego (LS)
Sheppard, Libera nos, salva nos (BCV)
Interval 5-10 mins
Robert White c. 1538 – 1574, Exaudiat te Dominus (BCV)
Byrd, Vigilate (LS)
Sheppard, The Lord’s prayer (BCV & LS)
Tallis, Psalms from Archbishop Parker’s Psalter (LS), When shall my sorrowful sighing slack (The Wode Psalter – BCV)
David Peebles d 1579?, In trouble and adversity (The Wode Psalter – tutti)
Tallis, Spem in alium (tutti)