All-day choral workshop with a unique Evensong performance
Date: Saturday, 14th October 2023
Time: 10:30am-6:15pm
Venue: Chapter House, Durham Cathedral, DH1 3EH
The Day:
Renowned choral conductor James Weeks (EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble and Durham University) leads an inspiring day exploring the rich and varied music of ‘England’s nightingale’, William Byrd (c.1540-1623), in the 400th anniversary year of his death.
This special workshop takes place in the magnificent Chapter House of Durham Cathedral, and culminates in a unique opportunity to for participants to sing one of the workshop pieces as an Introit at the cathedral’s service of Evensong that evening. The Cathedral Choir will sing the rest of the service after our performance.
The Music:
Byrd was the leading composer of the Elizabethan Age, his career spanning religious upheavals and huge changes in English society. He wrote in every genre – English anthems for Anglican worship, Latin motets and masses for the secret Catholic rites (in which he himself participated), songs, madrigals, music for viols, virginals and organ. Favouring the depth and intricacy of the polyphonic style throughout his career, Byrd’s music touches the sublime, and is extremely beautiful to sing.
Tickets available from the Durham Cathedral website.
Presented in partnership with Durham Cathedral.
William Byrd: Fantasies and In nomines; Five-part Pavan; Browning; Prelude and Ground
Robert Parsons: Ave Maria; De la Court; Ut Re Mi; In nomines
Thomas Tallis: Third Psalm Tune
Robert White: In nominee
One of the world’s great chamber ensembles, the viol consort Fretwork makes a welcome return to MUSICON with its acclaimed programme of music by the English Renaissance composer William Byrd, the 400th anniversary of whose death falls this year. Fretwork’s engaging presentation brings to life Byrd’s mellifluous and deeply expressive music, alongside music by his friends and contemporaries Parsons, Tallis and White.
Date: Wednesday, 18th October 2023
Time: Doors Open 7:00pm, Event 7:30pm-9:15pm
Venue: Elvet Methodist Church, 8 Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HL
Ticket prices: £10 Standard / £5 Student / £1 under-18s
Tickets available in advance via Event Durham or on the door
Amy Beach Pastorale
Grażyna Bacewicz Wind Kwintet
Leoš Janáček Mládí
Felix Mendelssohn String Octet in E minor
We are thrilled to welcome soloists from Royal Northern Sinfonia to MUSICON for a special evening of chamber music classics.
Leoš Janáček’s Mladi (Youth) is a wistful, nostalgic but celebratory look back on his younger life, a fabulous showcase for the superb wind players of Royal Northern Sinfonia, who also have a chance to shine in Bacewicz’s Quintet - a piece that encompasses both spiky, edgy melodies and velvety smooth textures in its brief duration.
The strings take over in the second half for the creative verve of Mendelssohn’s String Octet, a work of utter brilliance and understated emotional undercurrents, while the evening starts with the gentle melodies of pioneering composer Amy Beach.
Date: Wednesday, 1st November 2023
Heo Yoonjeong, a leading exponent of the ancient Korean geomungo zither, meets Cassandre Balbar, a brilliant multi-instrumentalist specialising in bagpipes and medieval recorder. Each performer showcases traditional repertoire, and then they come together, traversing time and space in a spirit of sympathy and understanding, and bringing their sound worlds into alignment. Fascinating new harmonies flow from this fusion – music to the ears, and resonance reverberating through the human heart.
Date: Tuesday, 21st November 2023
Venue: Department of Music, Palace Green, Durham
Tickets available in advance via Event Durham, or on the door.
Messiaen Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus
A unique chance to hear one of the pinnacles of the piano repertoire, performed by world-renowned pianist and composer Rolf Hind in the transcendent space of Durham Cathedral.
Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus, composed in 1944, is a suite of twenty pieces for solo piano meditating on the infancy of Jesus. Lasting two hours, it is a true tour-de-force, drawing an astonishing variety of harmonic colour and richness from the piano in music of extreme virtuosity and spiritual depth. Rarely performed in its entirety, the cycle is one of Messiaen’s greatest achievements, and Rolf Hind one of its leading modern interpreters.
Presented in association with Durham Cathedral.
Date: Tuesday, 16th January 2024
Time: Doors Open 7:00pm, Event 7:30pm-10:00pm
Venue: Durham Cathedral, DH1 3EH
Ticket prices: £15 Standard / £5 Student / £1 under-18s
Tickets available in advance via Durham Cathedral website, or on the door.
Trio EAPOS (East Asian Pool of Sound) is an exciting new fusion group bringing together the sonorities and patterns of three highly distinctive instruments from three different countries. Naoko Kikuchi plays the Japanese koto zither, Hong Yu the Korean daegeum flute, and Wu Wei the Chinese sheng mouth organ. Each is a celebrated master in their art, spanning a huge range of styles both ancient and modern. At the same time, they strive to push the boundaries of tradition, generating fresh new sounds through inter-cultural collaboration.
Date: Monday, 29th January 2024
Time: Doors 7:00pm. Event: 7:30pm-9:30pm
Venue: Durham Town Hall, Market Place, Durham DH1 3NJ
Tickets available in advance via Event Durham, or on the door
Merging sound installation, cutting-edge research, ancient Mediterranean traditions and experimental song, this is a concert like no other. Young London-based Idrîsî Ensemble brings together instrumentalists from around the world, jazz, rock and traditional music singers, calligraphers, composers, sound artists and medieval music specialists. Together they give voice to female troubadours, also called trobairitz, a neglected tradition on the fringe of medieval Christendom.
Idrîsî has developed a stunningly ornate and microtonal form of singing for this beautiful ancient repertoire, rigorously based on medieval treatises, pre-Gregorian and Mediterranean traditions. This will be an entrancing, ear-opening evening – prepare to be astonished and seduced.
Presented in association with Durham Vocal Festival
Date: Tuesday, 30th January 2024
Time: Doors Open 7:00pm, Event 7:30pm-9:30pm
Tickets available in advance via the Durham Cathedral website, or on the door.
Dowland: Songs for four voices
Morley: Madrigals for four voices
Barbara Monk Feldman: The Gentlest Chord
Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen: Song
and other works
Virtuoso vocal ensemble EXAUDI’s appearances in MUSICON and Durham Vocal Festival have become firm favourites with audiences over the past few years. Now an Ensemble-in-Residence at Durham University, they return with a programme of intimate love songs from across the centuries, from limpid Elizabethan madrigals by Dowland and Morley to modern Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s stunning and moving tribute to Dowland, Song.
The concert will also feature music specially composed for EXAUDI by A-level students at St Leonard’s Catholic School, in partnership with Durham Music Service.
Presented in collaboration with Durham Vocal Festival
Date: Tuesday, 13th February 2024
Venue: Durham Town Hall, Market Place, Durham
Astonishing young pianist Ben Smith returns to MUSICON to explore the intricacies of rhythm and repetition in a programme that - amongst other things - investigates dance forms of the French baroque, middle-eastern drum patterns, phasing, and microtimings of rubato and swing. Grooves considers what happens when numerical abstractions collide with the physicality of performed music. That is, what happens when rhythms become grooves.
Presenting old and new work with radically different formulations of rhythm, the programme is bookended by two ultra-virtuosic works from the 1970s avant-garde: Ichiyanagi’s very rarely performed Time Sequence, and Xenakis’ monumental Evryali.
Toshi Ichiyanagi: Time Sequence (1976)
Richard Beaudoin: Chopin Desséché (2009)
Ruth Crawford Seeger: Piano Study in Mixed Accents (1930)
Martin Iddon: new work (2023)
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre: Suite No. 3 in A minor (1687)
Frank Zappa: The Black Page (1976)
Conlon Nancarrow (arr. Ben Smith): Study No. 11 for Player Piano (1965-1969)
Nicholas A. Huber: Darabukka (1976)
Olivier Messiaen: Ile de feu II (1949)
Ryuichi Sakamoto: hibari (2009)
Iannis Xenakis: Evryali (1973)
Date: Wednesday, 24th April 2024
Venue: Music Department, Palace Green, Durham
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