Ave Maria

Happening tonight in Norwich, a beautiful BBC Singers programme conducted by James McMillan, which will include my setting of a Marian antiphon, Ave Maria Caelorum. And also of course music by James himself, and by John Tavener. The culminating work will be Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli.

Long were the years when I toiled as a music student "doing my Palestrina" (ie difficult-seeming 16th century counterpoint exercises.) I'm so glad, in later life, to have learned how utterly beautiful that music actually is. What a lovely concert this will be; audible on BBC R3 next Thursday evening and, by fortunate timing, tuning in to the optimism felt following the election of the new Pope.

PICTURED: in St George's Cathedral, Southwark, during a recent visit to Nick Daniel's memorable Stravinsky-Messiaen concert with Britten Sinfonia. I have to confess that this was my first time inside that building in over thirty years of living just down the road from it. And likewise, I was until now in ignorance of tonight's Norwich concert venue, St John the Baptist. This is the second largest Catholic Cathedral in the UK, definitely now on my radar.