The JCS gives the London Première of Toby Young’s Dancing Star with the Torgan Dance Company at St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden on 20th October in a programme entitled Danse Macabre. The music ranges from renaissance funeral music from Spain and Portugal and Herbert Howells Requiem via Dancing Star to Brazil and Argentina with choral settings of a Piazzolla Tango and some folk songs.

Dancing Star is a suite of choral songs by Toby Young and is a JCS co-commission (with the Exultate Singers and Strathclyde University Chamber Choir) and is the brainchild of Peter Broadbent, conductor of the Joyful Company of Singers. Once Toby had decided to set texts which related to dancing, the idea of involving dancers in the performance seemed too good an opportunity to be missed, now made real by the Torgan Dance Company. There are six movements in the suite which set seven poems from a variety of poets. The music references the dances of the Baroque suite (Prelude, Allemande, Minuet, Gigue, Sarabande and Bourée).

26 year-old Toby is a composer whose work explores the boundaries between pop music, classical music and sonic art. After winning the Guardian/BBC Proms Young Composer of the Year (2006 and 2008) and International ABRSM Composition Competition (2009), Toby’s music has been performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, Fretwork, London Mozart Players, Britten Sinfonia and CHROMA. Choral commissions include those from the choirs of King’s College Cambridge, New College Oxford, Queens College Oxford, Westminster Abbey, the Choir of Royal Holloway and the BBC Singers. His works have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM, and he has been the featured composer at the Kings Lynn and Stratford Festivals.

More information about Toby can be found at: theothertoby.com

Ticket details are on our ‘Future Performances’ page.