Somerset Chamber Choir: Out of the East

Sunday 19 February 2012, 3pm
King's College Chapel, Taunton

Out of the East: Inspiring choral and piano music by Russian and Baltic composers

Somerset Chamber Choir
Anita D'Attellis (piano)
Graham Caldbeck (conductor)

This striking musical sequence entitled Out of the East includes the undated and anonymous Kontakion for the departed (based on an ancient Kiev Orthodox chant) and progresses towards our time via movements drawn from the significant settings of Vespers and other liturgies by Tchaikovsky, Grechaninov and Rachmaninov, each composed with the express intention of reconciling the traditional musical style of the Russian Orthodox Church with more recent musical developments. And after the 1917 Revolution in Russia, Stravinsky developed this tradition further when he composed several short, beautiful choral works for the Orthodox Church following his return to the faith.

During the 1970s and 80s, choral music generally, and choral festivals in particular, provided many of the Baltic States with a focus for reasserting their own native cultural traditions, as political events leading to the eventual break up of the Soviet Union gathered momentum. This period is represented by music by Gorecki (Poland), Einojuhani Rautavaara (Finland), and Schnittke (who left Russia to live in Germany in 1990). Representing the period after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the engaging music of Arvo Pärt (Estonia), Vytautas Miskinis (Lithuania) and Pawel Lukaszewski (Poland) brings us up to the present.
Anita D’Attellis, the choir’s accompanist and a regular piano recitalist, performs complementary masterpieces by Chopin and Rachmaninov, alongside more recent works by Rautavaara and Lukaszewski.

Tickets: £18 & £15 (reserved), £11 (unreserved) available from Taunton TIC: 01823 336344 or BOOK ONLINE at www.somersetchamberchoir.org.uk