WORTHING conductor John Gibbons joins composer Karl Jenkins in a performance of the new Stabat Mater on tour this autumn - and its nearby date is Brighton's St Bartholemew's Church this Sunday (October 19, 2008). The work was premiered only this March.
The huge 1980s hit Adiemus is the trademark sound Jenkins OBE created while creating an airline advert and his work has since been a mainstay in the Classic FM Hall of Fame top 10, with The Armed Man, his Requiem and Stabat Mater.
Jenkins now pro
bably vies with John Tavener for the title of the nation's most popular living composer of "classical music".
Ethnic vocals were the striking innovation of Adiemus and thereafter a distinguishing feature of Jenkins' subsequent work. In this department, the Stabat Mater tour soloist is Belinda Sykes, who appeared on the best-selling EMI CD of the work.
She began as purely a singer of English folk song but now works in the fields of early music and baroque while also collaborating with modern composers such as Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Dominic Muldowney.
As well as studying vocal improvisation in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and India, she studied oboe and recorder at Guildhall School of Music, so it is an exciting feature of this occasion that, as well as singing, she will be playing the dukduk.
This Arabic oboe, also spelt doukdouk, is already known to rock fans of Peter Gabriel.
Levon Monassian brought it to Gabriel's Secret World tour table and provided the stunning stage presence and neck hair-raising sound in the refrain on the track Blood Of Eden.
Add this to the Christian text of Stabat Mater, the mourning of Christ's mother, Mary, as he dies on the cross, and the recipe is for something else original and memorable.
The traditional orchestra is augmented by ancient percussion instruments and the rhythmic vitality and the mysterious vocal sound create a new and powerful way of stirring the soul of the listener.
Gibbons is Worthing Symphony Orchestra's Principal conductor and guest conductor with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, having past assisted such name conductors as Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Leonard Slatkin, as well as recording with the BBC Symphony and Philharmonia orchestras.
But he is also choral director at Bristol's Clifton Cathedral, and on this tour he is co-directing the combined forces of the Karl Jenkins Festival Orchestra and Chorus.
Jenkins' latest album, Quirk, was released on October 6 and includes his Palladio, also his La Folia for marimba and strings, plus concertos - for harp, for flute and percussion, and for violin.
Exerpts from this album, and The Armed Man, will be included in the concert.
The performance at St Bart's starts at 7.30pm. Tickets, all in the nave - front £27.50, middle £22.50, towards rear £16, back £10.
All seats unreserved, concessions £2 for Under-18s, full-time students, registered unemployed and senior citizens. Group discounts available on phone.
Telephone: 0845 658 8982 (local rates) or by post (be quick) with SAE to Choral Adventures Ltd, Home Farm, 139 Buckingham Road, Bletchley, Milton Keynes, MK3 5JD.
www.karljenkins2008.com-----------
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