Karl Jenkins: Gloria with The Really Big Chorus
(May 2010)
The world premiere of Gloria by Karl Jenkins is at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 11 July, with its release on an EMI CD following on 12 July.Karl Jenkins’s new Gloria can fairly be described as the biggest choral premiere of the year, with over 2500 voices joining together at the Royal Albert Hall on 11 July, conducted by Brian Kay. The Really Big Chorus, who perform from scratch with a daytime rehearsal and evening concert, gave a successful performance of Jenkins’s The Armed Man: a Mass for Peace in 2008 which attracted a capacity gathering and prompted the Gloria to be its first commissioned work. The Royal Albert Hall premiere of Gloria will also feature an interview with Karl Jenkins.
> Listen to soundclips of Gloria
In Gloria Jenkins sets three of the traditional Latin texts entitled The Proclamation, The Prayer and The Exaltation, together with two additional movements: The Psalm is a setting of Psalm 150 to be sung in Hebrew or Latin, and The Song collects Old Testament texts in English. Between the sung movements are readings of texts from other religions expressing their own concept of the divine or a deity, drawn from Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Islam. The orchestration of Gloria mirrors that of the standard (larger) scoring of Fauré’s Requiem, with the addition of percussion. The vocal score of Gloria, published by Boosey & Hawkes, will be generally available on sale following the premiere on 11 July.
> Order a copy of the vocal score of Gloria
EMI releases its new Jenkins CD coupling Gloria with Te Deum, immediately following The Really Big Chorus’s performance in July (CD 646 430 2; download 5099964643052). Performers on disc are the National Youth Choir and London Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer. This follows EMI recordings of The Armed Man, Requiem, Stabat Mater and Stella natalis, works which have established Jenkins as one of the most popular and widely performed choral composers of our time.
> Buy the EMI CD of Gloria and Te Deum from our online shop
> Buy EMI Jenkins recordings from The Shop at Boosey.com
2010 is the 10th anniversary year for The Armed Man, and special celebratory performances are planned in October in London with Jenkins himself conducting and in Cardiff in November. This summer Boosey & Hawkes publishes the full score of The Armed Man for the first time. It will appear in two editions: a deluxe hardback signed score for both collectors and conductors, and a paperback full score for study and performance - both versions are available for pre-order from www.boosey.com/shop or your local dealer. EMI releases a special 10th anniversary edition of The Armed Man this autumn including a new Jenkins work which sets Binyon’s For the Fallen, sung by Hayley Westenra, and incorporates The Last Post.
Other new Jenkins works include Zhi Jiangnan (On Visiting Jiangnan) for chorus and orchestra, commissioned by the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival and performed in April as an upbeat to the Shanghai EXPO. Jiangnan is the Southern region of China including the Shanghai Municipality.
A further new work for chorus, solo voice, violin, percussion and string orchestra is premiered in October, featuring violinist Marat Bisengaliev, and will be recorded for future release on EMI.
> Further information on Performance: Gloria
> Further information on Work: Gloria
> Further information on Gloria SATB & piano
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