We are putting the final touches to plans for our tour of North Northumberland in May 2024, with our main performances:

‘Far from Land’ at St Mary’s Church, Wooler on Saturday 4th May at 7.30pm, where we open the 2024 Wooler Arts Summer Concerts series;

‘Transitions’ at St Paul’s RC Church, Alnwick on Sunday 5th May at 7pm.

The two concerts’ programmes are complementary but with differences, on themes that feature the sea, life’s transitions and voyages of many kinds.

 

In ‘Far from Land’, the centre-piece of the programme is John Casken’s Uncertain Sea which interleaves two poems by Katrina Porteous who has lived and worked on the Northumbrian coast since 1987. It is a vivid and atmospheric evocation of the sea and those who earn their living in its dangerous environment. The programme includes two more of Casken’s pieces, the first performance of Floore of Allegories on a text of the metaphysical poet George Herbert, and Caedmon’s Hymn, setting a translation of the 7th century poem by the supposedly illiterate cowherd born near Wooler who, according to Bede, was miraculously empowered to compose and sing this poem in honour of God the Creator.

A much lighter picture of the sea dates back even further to the sixth century legend of St. Brendan and the Fishes, as interpreted in a poem by Ian Serraillier and set to music by Paul Reade.

Judith Bingham had a close encounter with drowning some years ago, and the experience moved her to write The Drowned Lovers, creating a mirror image to the famous choral piece The Blue Bird by Stanford and re-working its material into a companion piece. The poet who wrote The Blue Bird, Mary E Coleridge, also wrote Chillingham, an evocation of a local village, which inspired another Stanford setting we shall perform.

Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi wrote Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae in response to the sinking of the MS Estonia in September 1994 en route from Tallinn to Stockholm, and the piece is dedicated to the memory of the 910 people who lost their lives. The main choral section is a setting of words from Psalm 107 “They that go down to the sea in ships”. The other element is a solo soprano who sings a folk-like melody which is intentionally generic and could come from any Northern country.

The programme also includes choral arrangements of English folksongs related to the sea by Vaughan Williams, and settings of familiar folk songs of Northumberland by W G Whittaker and Derek Hobbs.

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In ‘Transitions’ at Alnwick we will be joined by the poet, author and broadcaster Katrina Porteous, who will be reading some of her poems and writings interspersed with our choral items.

As well as Uncertain Sea by John Casken we include a piece he wrote in 1993 for the 900^th Anniversary of Durham Cathedral entitled Sunrising, to the words of poet Sylvia Townsend Warner.

Sir James MacMillan was taught by  John Casken at Durham University in the 1980s, and he is represented in this programme by two pieces. O Radiant Dawn is one of his Strathclyde Motets, and …fiat mihi… sets the words of the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation: “let it be done to me according to your word”.

As well as her re-working of Stanford’s The Bluebird in The Drowned Lovers, we also feature Judith Bingham’s Distant Thunder, her re-interpretation of My Soul, there is a country from the Parry Songs of Farewell.  We follow My soul with the third and fourth of the six-movement Parry collection.

Our Alnwick programme also includes the composition which has perhaps become Sir John Tavener’s best-known – the Song for Athene, which demonstrates the hallmark influences of Orthodox liturgical music, and which made such an impact all over the world when it was sung at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Finally, we shall again feature settings of familiar Northumberland folk songs, as arranged by W G Whittaker and Derek Hobbs.

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As well as our two main performances, we shall be giving free half-hour afternoon ‘taster sessions’ at popular local tourist venues:

• on 4th May at 2.15pm in the minstrels’ gallery at Ad Gefrin, the new Anglo-Saxon Museum and Whisky Distillery at Wooler
• on 5th May at 1.45pm at The Alnwick Garden, a unique contemporary botanical garden.

Our tour also includes educational outreach events with local schools – so it’s going to be a busy long-weekend for JCS!

Do join us at one or all of our performances!

For tickets for ‘Far from Land’ at St Mary’s Church, Wooler on Saturday 4th May, click this link: Wooler Arts (thelittleboxoffice.com)

For tickets for ‘Transitions’ at St Paul’s RC Church, Alnwick on Sunday 5th May, click this link: Eventbrite – Transitions.