VOCES8; Jonathan Dove piano

Welcome the New Year with a programme that moves from hushed expectancy to radiant celebration. VOCES8’s programme is conceived as a circle within a circle, opening with music for the beginning of the Church’s year and soon celebrating the nativity with festive classics by composers including Hieronymous Praetorius and Robert Lucas Pearsall, Reena Esmail, Kerensa Briggs, Philip Stopford, Elizabeth Poston and VOCES8’s composer-in-residence Taylor Scott Davis.

The second, natural circle is described by Jonathan Dove’s The Passing of the Year, a vivid and exhilarating work tracing the turning of the seasons. The work begins with the optimism of spring and moves through summer and autumn before arriving at winter, closing not in stillness but in a bold, exuberant outburst. For this special performance Jonathan Dove joins VOCES8 at the piano to perform one of his landmark works.

Together, these two cycles – the liturgical and the natural – reflect one another. As the calendar year turns on New Year’s Eve, VOCES8’s programme invites you to experience renewal not as a single moment but as a recurring, ever-turning circle.

Reena Esmail – The Unexpected Early Hour