Tuesday 22 November 2022 The New Space at New College

Festival Evensong

Choir of New College Oxford

An ARVO PÄRT…and a Littlemore event

The Choir of New College Oxford presents a Festival Evensong placing the sacred music of Arvo Pärt in its liturgical context. Partly inspired by Gregorian chant, Pärt has composed a large number of works for choir over the years, many of which are based on his tintinnabuli method. Pärt’s Beatitudes is one of the first works by the composer to use the English language, and is based on the text from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It was premiered in 1990 in Berlin’s Nathanielkirche. The radiant organ voluntary is by Pärt’s close friend Tõnu Kõrvits and was premiered in 2014 at the Tallinn International Organ Festival.

About the artists

The Choir of New College Oxford is one of Britain’s best-known choral ensembles with an international reputation for its performances across wide-ranging repertoire. When William of Wykeham founded his ‘New’ College in 1379, a choral foundation was at its heart, and daily chapel services have been a central part of college life ever since. The choir is made up of sixteen boy choristers and fourteen adult clerks – the latter a mixture of professional singers and undergraduate members of the college.

Originally from Belfast, Dónal McCann read music at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was an academic and organ scholar. At King’s, he accompanied the choir in daily chapel services, as well as in recordings, broadcasts and extensive tours, including to America and Australia. Prior to this, Dónal was the Andrew Lloyd Webber Scholar at Eton College, where he achieve the FRCO with the Limpus Prize, subsequently being nominated for the Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. The following year he won the inaugural Dame Gillian Weir Medal at the Northern Ireland International Organ Competition.

Dónal studied piano at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, and organ with Professor Gerard Gillen at St Mary’s Pro Cathedral. He has performed as a soloist with the Ulster Orchestra and the Academy of Ancient Music, and has given many recitals in the UK and abroad.