St John’s Smith Square proudly hosts workshops, ticketed concerts and free late-night liturgical events exploring a vast range of sacred music in celebration of Holy Week. Nigel Short and Tenebrae will perform a moving sequence of devotional settings and responses on Spy Wednesday, and Maundy Thursday, and the Westminster Consort on Good Friday. The festival will also include opportunities to participate in workshops.
“Since the festival began in 2017 we have been lucky to work with some truly inspiring artists, including ensembles of worldwide renown as well as wonderful emerging talent, and this year is no exception. In particular, it has been a long-held dream of mine to invite the King’s Singers, with whom I spent a happy six years performing all over the world, and I am thrilled that they will be performing here at St John’s Smith Square on Palm Sunday evening. Other festival highlights include welcome returns from both The Tallis Scholars and Polyphony, and the exciting female-voice ensemble Musica Secreta in their festival debut.” Nigel Short, Artistic Director, Tenebrae & Holy Week Festival
The Festival’s raison d'être is to provide ‘A moment of stillness in the heart of the city’. Distinguished headline performers include the King’s Singers, Polyphony, The Tallis Scholars, Tenebrae, and the Choir of Merton College, Oxford with Florilegium and Siglo de Oro. New to Holy Week Festival are Musica Secreta, with the recently discovered complete Brumel Lamentations, and the Armonico Consort with soprano Elin Manahan Thomas in Bach’s B Minor Mass. Additional sessions, engaging with the Festival’s focus on stillness, will range from a pre-concert discussion exploring the ways in which people use music to express or process different forms of grief, to a pre-concert guided meditation, led by the Houses of Parliament yoga coach Chris Miller.
Holy Week Festival will be on general sale from Friday 20 December 2019.
Patrons booking opens: Monday 16 December 2019
Friends booking opens: Wednesday 18 December 2019
