NEW COMMISSIONS FOR 2019
As the result of a most generous bequest from a much-missed member of the choir, Cathy Bereznicki, the Addison Singers, have been able to commission three new works, all of which will have their premiere in 2019.
Michael Berkeley (who succeeds Judith Weir as ‘Featured Composer’ with the Addison Choirs in 2018/19), has chosen to set a text concerned with the life of Mary Magdalene, in his ‘Magdalena’ for chorus & organ, which will be premiered on March 30th. Zillah Myers is an alto in both the Addison Oratorio and Chamber Choirs – her new work, ‘Hymn’, appropriately enough setting a poem by Joseph Addison ‘The Spacious Firmament’, (for chorus & piano), will be premiered on July 13th. Finally, Howard Goodall (with whom both the Addison Singers and their Music Director, David Wordsworth, have had a long association), is writing a new work for chorus & orchestra – ‘The Gravity of Kindness – A Christmas Meditation’- which will include a setting of a poem by the Palestinian poet Naomi Shihab Nye and will be premiered on December 7th. All the premieres take place in the choirs now regular performing home, St Peter’s Church, in Acton Green, West London.