http://www.chanticleer.org/secondtavenerpressrelease.html ------WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING AND PERFORMANCES------
CHANTICLEER RECORDS SIR JOHN TAVENER'S "LAMENTATIONS AND PRAISES" FOR TELDEC WITH MEMBERS OF THE HANDEL & HAYDN SOCIETY OF BOSTON; RECORDING DUE FOR RELEASE ON JANUARY 29, 2002
CO-COMMISSIONED BY CHANTICLEER, THE HANDEL & HAYDN SOCIETY OF BOSTON, AND THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART IN NEW YORK, THE NEW WORK RECEIVES WORLD PREMIERE PERFORMANCES WITH STANFORD LIVELY ARTS, AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY'S MEMORIAL CHURCH ON JANUARY 31 AND FEBRUARY 1, 2002
NEW YORK PREMIERE SET FOR MARCH 16 AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART'S TEMPLE OF DENDUR; BOSTON PREMIERE PERFORMANCES TO BE PRESENTED BY HANDEL & HAYDN SOCIETY AT SANDERS THEATER ON MARCH 22 AND 24, 2002
The Grammy Award-winning all-male vocal ensemble Chanticleer has recorded Sir John Tavener's new 70-minute theatrical work Lamentations and Praises for Teldec, and will co-present its world premiere with Stanford Lively Arts at Stanford University's glorious Memorial Church in Stanford, California on January 31 and February 1, 2002. Teldec will release the album on January 29, 2002 to coincide with these first performances.
Lamentations and Praises, co-commissioned by Chanticleer, the Handel & Haydn Society of Boston and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is a major 70-minute work, a liturgical drama written expressly for the 12 voices of Chanticleer and an unusual combination of instruments and electronics: flute, bass trombone, string quintet, tape, and a percussion section comprised of a Byzantine monastery bell, Tibetan temple bowl, tam-tam, simantron (a large wooden sounding-board struck with a hammer), tubular bells and timpani. Chanticleer's music director Joseph Jennings directs Chanticleer and members of the Handel & Haydn Society on the recording and will lead its first performances at Stanford Lively Arts, in New York at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Temple of Dendur (March 16) and at the Sanders Theater in Cambridge, MA (March 22 and 24).
Like most of Tavener's recent compositions, Lamentations and Praises was inspired by the composer's Orthodox faith and written to convey the simultaneous "joy-sorrow" that accompanies the Orthodox Christian conception of death and resurrection. Divided into 13 sections, the work is based on a series of icons from Holy Week and the Resurrection, beginning with the crucified Christ being taken down from the cross and escalating, in a sequence of related episodes, to the grandly-conceived Resurrection in Hades, an icon depicting Adam and Eve being pulled up from Hades by the resurrected Christ. The text for Lamentations and Praises is taken from the Orthodox service of the Burial of Our Lord on Holy Friday, and is translated by the composer.
---About Lamentations and Praises---
Tavener describes Lamentations and Praises as a "sequence of ikons" linked, as the composer explains in the score, "by a corridor of music." This concept will be explored visually in live performances of the work. In the first U.S. performances, French director Yves Coudray will stage the production, with lighting designs by Jack Carpenter and costumes by Cassandra Carpenter.
"I call the work Lamentations and Praises because there is an esoteric concept in Orthodoxy known as 'Joy/Sorrow'," explains Tavener. "The Lamentations/Praises are part of an Orthodox Service that takes place on Good Friday. The music does not pound the heart with sorrow, nor does it dance with joy, but rather inhabits the primordial world of joy-sorrow."
Despite its origins in Orthodox religious experience, Sir John Tavener hopes that the work will be approached and appreciated from a broadly spiritual perspective. "Lamentations and Praises attempts to reinstate the sacred in art because it is only through divine imagination that the world can be saved. It can hopefully be understood at a universal level, and draws on the childlike mentality of traditional art."
The idea for a commission from Sir John Tavener came from Chanticleer's music director, Joseph Jennings. The composer's A Village Wedding, featured on Chanticleer's Grammy Award-winning recording Colors of Love, had become a standard in the ensemble's repertoire and a favorite piece with the group's audiences. "While A Village Wedding was not written for us," explains Jennings, "it fit us perfectly in just about every way: voicing, key, sentiment, sensibility, aesthetic. When considering composers for a commission, Tavener was probably the first person to come to mind."
Asked to describe the challenges presented by the work, Jennings points out that finding a balance between the Orthodox Byzantine elements, particularly the microtonal inflections, which were entirely new to the group, and the more Western elements in the singing was difficult but rewarding.
Joseph Jennings found comfort in preparing a new score by Sir John Tavener, whose music is so close to the heart of the Chanticleer singers. "We just have to be ready to go to that intensely spiritual place. Our body rhythms must slow down and our focus must really be narrowed if we ever hope to reach the essence."
Like the composer, Jennings finds a universal message in Lamentations and Praises: "We have worked with a lot of composers and some musical languages are complex, but this is not the case with Tavener. That's the beauty and the appeal of Tavener's music. It is deceptively simple and devoid of trappings. It illuminates that basic core of humanity that, if given a chance, can shine forth without the other distractions."
The world premiere production is funded through generous gifts from: Phyllis Wattis; The James Irvine Foundation; The Carlyle Fund, Susan and Dennis Carlyle, co-founders; The Carol Franc Buck Foundation; and the L.J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation.
---Sir John Tavener---
At the debut concert of the London Sinfonietta in 1968, John Tavener's dramatic cantata The Whale took its audience by storm and led to Tavener's music being recorded on The Beatles' Apple label. Since that time, Tavener has continued to show an originality of concept and an intensely personal idiom, making his a voice quite distinct from those of his contemporaries.
His growing interest in the Russian Orthodox Church, which he joined in 1977, marked a significant change in his style of composition. Increasingly, his influences looked back to ancient tradition as he worked towards the creation of an icon in sound. Major works of the 1980s and early 1990s include the Orthodox Vigil Service and the Akathis of Thanksgiving, which was given a standing ovation in Westminster Abbey at its premiere in 1988. The Virgin Classics recording of The Protecting Veil for solo cello and strings with Steven Isserlis was honored with a Gramophone Award in 1992. Large-scale choral and orchestral works include Resurrection and an opera for the 1992 Aldeburgh Festival, Mary of Egypt, which was recorded by Collins Classics.
The enormous popularity of Tavener's music is reflected by the number of arts festivals that have featured his music, including Perth, Athens, West Cork, Toronto, St. Nazaire, and the BBC's Tavener Festival, which celebrated the composer's 50th birthday in 1994. Recent commissions include Svyati (1995) for Steven Isserlis, the recording of which was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize in 1997; The Hidden Face (1996) for the City of London Sinfonia; The Last Discourse (1997), premiered at St. Paul's Cathedral in March 1998; Eternity's Sunrise (1997), commissioned by the Academy of Ancient Music and premiered at the City of London Festival in 1998; and the epic Fall and Resurrection, premiered at St. Paul's Cathedral in January 2000. Tavener's book The Music of Silence, A Composer's Testament is published by Faber & Faber. In October 2000, London's South Bank Centre presented Ikons of Light, a major three-week festival dedicated to his music. At the BBC Proms in summer 2001, his Song of the Cosmos received its world premiere.
Essentially a reflective spirit, John Tavener also has an engaging humor that is never far from the surface. This is captured on both The South Bank Show (a UK television program that featured Tavener), and in Glimpses of Paradise (1992), a documentary by director Geoffrey Haydon.
There are many CD recordings of John Tavene's music available on record labels including Sony, Virgin Classics, EMI, BMG, Collins Classics, Hyperion, Linn Records, Nimbus, Chandos, and Harmonia Mundi.
Tavener received a Knighthood in the 2000 New Year's Honours list for "Services to Music."
---Chanticleer---
Chanticleer, the only full-time classical vocal ensemble in the United States, has received great acclaim over its 24-year history for performances and recordings of an extraordinarily broad range of music from medieval to contemporary.
Chanticleer has an extensive and diverse discography, recording exclusively for Teldec. Magnificat, a recording of Renaissance music dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was released in fall 2000 and reached a Top 5 position on Billboard's classical chart. Chanticleer has recently released a new holiday album entitled Christmas with Chanticleer Featuring Special Guest Dawn Upshaw, a collection of gloriously beautiful Christmas carols from around the world.
Chanticleer has made the commissioning and performance of new music a major component of its artistic mission.
"To be involved with commissioning and performing new works is one of the most exciting activities that we have the privilege and pleasure to be involved in," explains Joseph Jennings.
"For composers to have us in mind, or to be a part of the inspiration for a new work of art, is quite daunting. Also to be able to leave something behind, perhaps a piece that ends up entering the standard choral repertoire, is incredible. By participating in commissioning and performing new works we are somehow a part of furthering the choral art and encouraging the creative process."
For more information/ ticket information, visit the following Web sites:
www.chanticleer.org [
chanticleer.org]
www.handelandhaydn.org [
handelandhaydn.org]
www.stanford.edu [
stanford.edu] or
http://livelyarts.stanford.edu/ -------- Albert Imperato
21C Media Group
(212) 799-3638
30 W. 63rd Street, Ste. 15s
NY, NY 10023
