Harmonious vocals to make Music Centre sing
Award-winning vocal ensemble, the Gesualdo Six, will join the University of St Andrews’ St Salvator’s Chapel Choir for a concert at the University’s innovative new music centre next month.
Presented jointly by the St Andrews Concert Series and St Andrews Voices, the concert will showcase the unique acoustics of the Laidlaw Music Centre’s McPherson Recital Room.
The Gesualdo Six was founded in 2014 to perform Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories and the group has gone on to perform around the world.
Their forthcoming performance in St Andrews follows their appearance at St Andrews Voices in 2019 when they collaborated with Luxmuralis in Holy Trinity Church and performed alongside St Salvator’s Chapel Choir.
On Friday 8 April they will again join the University’s St Salvator’s Chapel Choir for a performance of choral music which includes Renaissance polyphony by Tallis and Gombert, Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir and world premieres by Paul Mealor and Owain Park.
The McPherson Recital Room is the smallest performance space in the world with a reverberation chamber designed to provide excellent acoustics while a ground-breaking moveable floor allows a wide range of configurations to adapt to different performances.
Christopher Bragg, Head of Programming at the Music Centre, said: “When we first conceived the McPherson Recital Room with our design team, we wanted to create a world-class space for group singing, which historically has played such a deeply embedded role in the University’s musical culture.
“The results have been beyond anything we imagined possible in such an intimate room and this concert, bringing together our own choral scholars with such a pre-eminent group, will show why.
Tickets are available via the Byre Theatre website.
The Gesualdo Six is an award-winning British vocal ensemble comprising some of the UK’s finest consort singers, directed by Owain Park. Praised for their imaginative programming and impeccable blend, the ensemble formed in 2014.
Videos of the ensemble performing a diverse selection of works filmed in Ely Cathedral have been watched by millions online. The group released its debut recording English Motets on Hyperion Records in early 2018 to critical acclaim, followed by a festive album of seasonal favourites for Christmas 2019, and an album of compline-themed music titled Fading which was awarded Vocal & Choral Recording of the Year 2020 by Limelight.
St Salvator’s Chapel Choir is the flagship choir of the University of St Andrews. A mixed voice ensemble of around 30 students, its history extends back to the founding of the University in the early fifteenth century, when students were obliged to sing in the University’s chapel.
Committed to the performance of new music, St Salvator’s Chapel Choir regularly commissions and performs works for both liturgical and secular contexts and, during 2019, was Choir and Organ magazine’s Commissioning Partners. In recent years the choir has been privileged to work with musicians such as Sir James MacMillan, Robert Hollingworth, Paul Mealor and Dame Emma Kirkby.
Issued by the University of St Andrews Communications Office.