This Is London 5 April 2019

10
THE BACH CHOIR: ST MATTHEW
PASSION
On Sunday 7 April, The Bach Choir
and conductor David Hill will perform
Bach’s St Matthew Passion at the Royal
Festival Hall – an event that is a muchanticipated
fixture in London’s musical
calendar. The Choir’s conductor David
Hill was recently made a Member of the
Order of the British Empire in the New
Year Honours for his services to music.
The performance comes 125 years after
the Choir first performed the St Matthew
Passion. James Gilchrist returns to the
role of the Evangelist and Matthew Rose
sings Christ alongside Sophie Bevan,
Hilary Summers, Ed Lyon, and Neal
Davies.
The annual performance now begins
at 11.00, breaking for a long lunch at the
moment where the congregants in Bach’s
own Thomaskirche would have heard
their Good Friday sermon, between the
two parts. The Choir sings in English,
conveying the directness and the drama
as found in the German-texted original.
Members of the Bach Choir now
return to the work year on year with a
sense of devotion and unbroken tradition
that recalls the zeal of the amateur
societies that first unearthed and began
to perform Bach’s works nearly 200
years ago. Tickets tel: 020 3879 9555.
TALLULAH RENDALL COMES TO THE
TABERNACLE
Spirited rock singer turned sound
therapist, Tallulah Rendall, will be
playing at The Tabernacle in Notting Hill
on Saturday 6 April, as part of a tour
celebrating the launch of her landmark
new album The Liminal.
Launching on Thursday 4 April, The
Liminal is Tallulah’s fourth album.
Drawing on her life experience, the
album’s collection of uplifting lyrical
anthems were created to inspire and
heal, abetted by the sonic reverberations
of her gongs and singing bowls. Tallulah
is now eager to initiate others into this
this tranquil, creative dimension. To
achieve this, she has cooked up an
immersive, sensory experience for her
concerts where she will transport her
audience from deep stillness via an
opening sound bath, into an enlivening
live performance.
AMATIS PIANO TRIO IN CONCERT
The Amatis Trio won The Parkhouse
Award in 2015, were then chosen for the
BBC New Generation Artists scheme
2016-18 and are now ECHO Rising
Stars giving performances worldwide.
They have always championed new
music in addition to the well-loved
repertoire and continue with a concert
on 15 April at Southbank Centre.
‘Moorlands’ by the young Swedish
composer, Andrea Tarrodi, was
commissioned by ECHO and adds the
piano trio to the extensive range of
ensembles she writes for. In 2010,
Tarrodi’s piece Zephyros for orchestra
received 1st prize in the Uppsala
Composition Competition, which led to
several performances of the piece by
different orchestras around the world.
During 2011-2013, she was Radio
Sweden P2’s composer-in-residence and
in Spring 2012 she was appointed
‘Composer of the Spring Season’ in the
Berwald Concert Hall.
Performances of piano trios by
Brahms and Mendelssohn follow, both
second trios for these composers, the
former in C major and the latter in C
minor. Brahms’s was written in the
1880s which was considered a most
fruitful period for his chamber music
and Mendelssohn, writing about his trio
to sister Fanny, commented that it was
‘a trifle nasty to play, but not really
difficult’. He dedicated it to one of the
great musicians of the age, the
composer and violinist Louis Spohr,
who is known to have taken part in at
least one performance with
Mendelssohn himself at the piano.
For tickets, telephone 020 3879 9555.
P
T
The Amatis Trio.
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