Chelsea Plans

Having agreed to do a concert at next year's Chelsea Festival, I now have to come up with a suitable programme which will be interesting enough to sing and will attract Chelsea audiences. Current thinking is a programme constructed like our 2004 concert; only this time it will be themed around the Virgin Mary. With plainchant, Marian motets from various eras and a group of contemporary pieces. Already lined up are motets by Liszt, Faure, Saint-Saens, Byrd and Elgar; names which should look pretty well on the poster. Regarding my own contributions, we're going to repeat my one to a part Salve Regina which we did in the FifteenB Consort concerts earlier this year. But I don't have a substantial piece up my sleeve and I think that I'll write something specifically for the occasion. It won't be on the Marian theme (we need some variety) and leafing through my poetry books at home I came up with some poems by Rabindranath Tagore. I set his poetry in my cantata The Young Man and Death and have not set any since, so I think its about time. His poems often have a serious edge without being specifically religious (at least to my ears), which I think would work well in a predominantly sacred programme.