The German Choir of London sings at Bradford Cathedral
In a concert marking 100 years since the end of World War 1, the German Choir of London will be making a special visit to Bradford Cathedral. On Sunday, 27 May 2018 at 6.30 pm the choir present a variety of choral music in a concert together with the Bradford Cathedral Consort.
The programme will comprise a debut performance of Orlando Gough’s “Armistice”, five songs specially commissioned for this year’s commemoration of the end of the First World War.
The performance is part of the Choir’s 2018 tour “Blessed are the Peacemakers”, where the Choir will undertake a tour of thirteen Cathedrals in the UK and to Belgium to sing at services marking the 100th anniversary of the Armistice.
During the concerts the Choir will intersperse reflections of significant “peacemakers” of the time – people and organisations who attempted to prevent or shorten the conflict, or got involved with peace making at a later stage.
Barbara Hoefling, the choir’s musical director, says: “Today we want to sing together and honour peace and those who fought to bring peace into this world, then and now.”
The Bradford concert will include music by Schuetz, Holst, Wolf, Mahler, Scarlatti, Mendelssohn, Dyson, Dove and Brahms. On the same weekend, the Choir will also perform in Wakefield Cathedral and York Minster.
The Very Revd Jerry Lepine, Dean of Bradford said, “We are delighted to welcome this significant concert to Bradford Cathedral. In 1997 the Council declared Bradford to be a City of Peace and as we commemorate one hundred years since the end of World War One it is good to be able to draw together some significant peacemaking strands in this city with some wonderful choral music shared by German and British choirs."
The brief links between the music on the theme of peace will be spoken by Tricia Restorick from the WW1 Group, Liz Firth from the Peace Museum, Furaha Mussanzi, a young Congolese woman working for peace and justice in 2018, and the Rt Revd Nick Bains, Bishop of Leeds.
The Cathedral's Choir will also be performing and this promises to be a very special evening.
About The German Choir of London
The Choir was founded in 2009 in London and developed into a diverse, international ensemble of around sixty singers with a shared passion for music and a particular interest in German music, language and culture. With Barbara Hoefling as its musical director the choir blends choral tradition with musical innovation and has a wide-ranging repertoire and a busy performance schedule: the choir has attracted the attention of both German and UK television and has featured in the musical press.
The heart of the Choir’s repertoire is the German choral masterpieces of the seventeenth to late nineteenth centuries (Schütz, Bach, Haydn, Brahms, Mendelssohn and more), but also classical choral music, e.g. Vivaldi’s Gloria, Bach’s St. John’s passion or Haendel’s Dixit.
The Choir also performs contemporary music, including works specially commissioned for the Choir, such as Orlando Gough’s cycle “Armistice” which will be performed during a 2018 “Blessed are the peacemakers” tour of thirteen cathedrals and churches in the UK and Belgium to commemorate the end of the First World War, including Canterbury, Brussels and Liverpool Cathedrals.
The Choir has collaborated with many other choirs and ensembles, including the Choir of King’s College Cambridge, the Choir of St-Martin-in-the-Fields, the German Choir Paris, the UK Parliament Choir, the West London Bach Consort, Petersham Voices, the Keld Ensemble, and the choirs of different Lutheran congregations in London.
The choir retains a strong link with its place of origin, the Christuskirche in Knightsbridge. Performance venues included St Paul’s Cathedral and St-Martin-in-the-Fields in London, King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and Westminster Abbey, as well as a number of London churches and the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace. It also sang in public locations such as Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus or at Harrods London.