5.30pm, Friday 17 May 2019
Pre-concert talk by Charles Peebles at 5pm
St Pancras Parish Church, NW1 2BA

Performers

University College London Chamber Choir
Charles Peebles Director

Programme

• Divo Aloysio SacrumJames MacMillan
• A Child’s PrayerJames MacMillan
• Canticle of ZachariahJames MacMillan
• Missa BrevisJames MacMillan
• Christus VincitJames MacMillan

A beautiful programme of sacred works by James MacMillan to celebrate his 60th birthday in 2019, including Divo Aloysio Sacrum, Christus vincit, The Canticle of Zachariah, the haunting A Child’s Prayer – composed as a tribute to victims of the Dunblane massacre – and the Missa Brevis, a rich work from MacMillan’s teenage years that was first performed only in 2007, thirty years after its composition.

• Programme notes

University College London Chamber Choir

The University College London Chamber Choir is part of UCLU Music Society, the student music making body of University College London. The society also includes a large chorus, a symphony orchestra and University College Opera, Britain’s most high profile student opera company, which celebrated its 60th Anniversary with a highly acclaimed production of Weber’s Die Drei Pintos, followed by the first staging since the eighteenth century of Rameau’s Acante et Cephise.

The Chamber Choir consists of some of the most experienced ensemble singers in the student community and sings a repertoire ranging from programmes of Vivaldi, Pergolesi, and Charpentier to folk music and contemporary repertoire. Notable recent performances include Mozart’s Requiem with the London Mozart Players, performances of Handel’s Messiah in aid of University College Opera, featured performances in the ITV series William and Mary, and a widely admired production of Rousseau’s Le Devin du village as part of the international Rousseau conference held at UCL in 2018.

Charles Peebles

Charles Peebles studied at Cambridge University, the Guildhall and as a Conducting Fellow at Tanglewood. He has conducted, amongst others, the City of London Sinfonia, City of Birmingham Symphony, BBC Singers, Bournemouth Sinfonietta, English Chamber Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Nash Ensemble, Northern Sinfonia, Royal Philharmonic and BBC Symphony Orchestras. In 1992 he won the first Cadaques International Conducting Competition in Spain and has since conducted virtually every major Spanish orchestra including Orquesta Nacional de Espana. He has conducted extensively throughout Europe including engagements with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra in Vienna, Bruckner’s 9th Symphony with the Latvian National Symphony in Riga, concerts in Turkey, including with the Presidential Symphony and concerts with the National Symphony of Mexico. He has recorded for Hyperion and Largo records.

In the field of opera he conducted many productions of a wide repertoire for English Touring Opera, Holland Park Opera and Broomhill, Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte for the Glyndebourne Tour, and a critically acclaimed series of Rossini opera productions for Garsington Opera. Charles conducted Mozart’s Don Giovanni for the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in 2001 and 2002. He made his Far East debut in a televised concert with the distinguished tenor Jose Cura. Recent opera has included Carmen and Hansel and Gretel for the St Magnus Festival. Since 2001 Charles has been Music Director of University College Opera where he has conducted operas by Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, Weber, Donizetti, Verdi, Rimsky-Korsakov and Offenbach as well as the British premieres of Hahn’s Ciboulette, Dvorak’s Vanda, Lalo’s Fiesque, Bloch’s Macbeth, and the first staging since the eighteenth century of Rameau’s Acante et Cephise. Charles was created an Honorary Fellow of UCL in 2012.