Become immersed in the world of contemporary vocal music by some of the most accomplished classical and classical-cross-over composers alive today, and be transported by their use of the human voice to conjure thought, express feelings and inspire calm.
We will be your refuge focusses on some of the most mesmerising works for voices by contemporary North American composers. The programme centres on perhaps their most famous protagonist – Caroline Shaw – the youngest person to receive the Pulitzer Prize for music (with her Partita for 8 Voices). We will perform her work, Isle, which has recently won a Grammy award. The works in this programme have all the hallmarks of a contemporary culture which embraces a dynamic sense of variety and contradiction – crossing genres, styles and sources, they are at once deeply moving and light-hearted, virtuosic and deliberately stark, radically simple and hyper-complex, hypnotically repetitive and constantly shifting, novel and pastiche. Most of all, they are accessible to everyone and have the power to move us, and to enter the blood stream.
