Luminosa Voices, have a spring in their step and their voices this Easter as they celebrate their ten-year anniversary with a concert on 28th March at the magnificently refurbished All Saints Church, Odiham. The programme features music from composers who have all drawn on inspirations from the past for their text. Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs, based on the devotional poetry of the seventeenth century Welsh-born poet and Anglican priest, George Herbert, are a fitting musical prelude to Easter: opening with simple, direct, intrinsic spirituality and finishing with the majestic Antiphon, 'Let all the World in every corner sing'.
Continuing the spirit of joy, re-birth and all things new, the Choir is honoured and excited to be performing the large-scale Da Vinci Requiem which was composed by Cecilia McDowall for the 500-year anniversary of the artist’s death in 2019 and performed only once before in the same year at its premier in May at the Royal Festival Hall, London by Wimbledon Choral Society, under the baton of Neil Ferris. Composed from Leonardo’s Notebooks and his reflective and penetrating insights into the nature of mortality, this work sheds new light on familiar requiem texts through its palette of light and shade and textural detail. The piece is powerfully communicative and will be conducted by Rebekah Abbott, Artistic Director of Luminosa, and accompanied by Michael Higgins, organist. The evening will be enhanced by a rare and thrilling opportunity to hear an illuminating talk by the composer herself.
Luminosa are also delighted to be commissioning Salve Deus, Rex Judaeorum, an Easter Cantata, by Alison Willis, who is bringing to life the work of Aemilia Lanyer (1569–1645), one of the first Englishwomen to publish a volume of original verse at a time when there was still suspicion of women’s work in print. The poem is a daring version of the story of Christ, told from a female perspective. The cantata takes as its focus Pilate’s wife who, according to Matthew 27.19, tried to dissuade her husband from ordering Christ’s death. This moving and compelling piece is a synthesis of choral clarity, striking chords and harmony. Its composer, Alison Willis, is already a feted composer, having been commissioned by the London Concert Choir to compose A light not yet ready to go out for Breast Cancer Now, and Non omnis moriar for the BBC Singers. The Choir are also lucky that Alison sings as an alto with Luminosa Voices and is accompanist to Luminosa Young Voices, the youngest of the Luminosa family of choirs.
With dynamic and robust direction by Artistic Director and Conductor, Rebekah Abbott, the addition of high-quality instrumentalists and soloists, and motivated by a shared philosophy of collective music making, the Choir has enjoyed consistently enthusiastic responses from audiences over ten successful years.