A Mass For Peace

Media release 9 February 2009

A Mass For Peace

The Christchurch City Choir presents a one night only performance of The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins at the Christchurch Town Hall on Saturday 21 March.

- “…a fireball of orchestral and human voices!” as described by The Times

One of the most popular and dramatic modern choral works with a strong anti-war message will be performed by 200 voices in the Christchurch City Choir’s first concert of the year on 21 March 2009.

The Armed Man has been performed more than 400 times around the world since it was commissioned by the Royal Armouries (Leeds) to commemorate the new millennium. It has attracted new audiences to a concert event that combines multicultural texts, dramatic orchestral music and soaring voices to portray the heartbreak war brings. The work concludes with a heartfelt prayer for peace and reconciliation.

In the UK it has become one of the most requested pieces of classical music on the ClassicFM radio station, and the CD has Gold Disc status. Composer Karl Jenkins is a prolific and versatile contemporary composer; his crossover genre has introduced many people to classical music.

The 21 March concert will have the superb massed sound of 200 voices including students from Christchurch Girls’ High School, St Margaret’s College, Christ’s College and Villa Maria College. The Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Brian Law, includes Principal Oboe Peter Dykes who was a member of the orchestra playing at the world premiere in London’s Royal Albert Hall on 25 April 2000.

“People will enjoy this concert, it’s a total concept and I think it’s a very good choice for Christchurch,” Peter Dykes said. “It’s got a great sense of life about it which is uplifting. Young people in particular will find it exciting. The music provides challenging pieces for individual instruments and it’s a very enjoyable work for the orchestra to play.”

Music Director Brian Law, who has previously introduced works by Benjamin Britten, Szymanowski and William Walton as well as the commissioned bi-cultural Ahua, to Christchurch audiences, is confident The Armed Man will attract young people.

“The Armed Man is very relevant to current affairs, and it also resonates with the world-wide mood for change and greater integrity which we can see in the hope engendered by the election of President Obama" Brian Law said.

“This is a work that speaks directly to people, and many will be find they respond with tears to some of the evocative music, played against the backdrop of visual images that show the stark horror of war, its terrible carnage and the anguish inflicted on all caught up in its brutality.”

“Musically, it will be different from many of our concerts. The composer is a commercially successful writer of advertising and film music, which by its nature has to be instantly understandable. Thus in The Armed Man the music won’t be difficult for the audience to relate to, it will feature many poignant melodies played by solo instruments to carry an emotion and let it linger, before being swept up in the ferocious energy of the full orchestra and choir.”

Each of the thirteen segments combines imagery, song, silence, solo instruments and orchestra elements, such as the lone trumpet and single bell which begin “Angry Flames”, written by a survivor of the Hiroshima bomb.

The words come from several sacred texts including Islam, Hinduism and the Bible, as well as from writers and poets. They were selected by the Master of the Royal Armouries, Guy Wilson, to give relevance and meaning across many cultures.

The female soloists are Auckland soprano Morag Atchison and the ever-popular and versatile mezzo Helen Medlyn. Tenor Andrew Grenon and bass Ben Caukwell are both University of Canterbury vocal graduates and members of ChristChurch Cathedral Choir. They are frequently heard as soloists and in ensembles in the Canterbury region. The treble soloist is Max McGillivrary (13), senior chorister at ChristChurch Cathedral.

City Choir Chairman Richard Hill expects that many of the audience, both young and old, will be new to major choral works but who have heard about The Armed Man and want to see it for themselves.

“This is the first time the work will have been performed in Christchurch, and it’s likely to be a sellout concert as it was when performed in Auckland and Wellington in recent years,” Richard Hill said.

“The Armed Man is an immensely powerful and uplifting plea for peace, and we believe this is a very relevant time to bring it to Christchurch, when there has been so much war and conflict in the world," Richard Hill said. "It is an emotionally charged multimedia work that has gripped the UK concert-going public since its first performance and I'm sure the response in Christchurch will be the same."

Richard Hill said that every two years the choir promotes a concert for young people, as part of its policy to encourage and promote choral singing to young people.

“We also invite young singers to take part in these special performances, and for this concert three of the soloists are young singers – tenor Andrew Grenon, baritone Ben Caukwell and 13 year old chorister Max McGillivray. The previous concert we did with young singers was the highly successful performance of Mozart’s REQUIEM in 2007.”

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The Christchurch City Choir’s 2009 programnme includes a Mother’s Day Concert with Dame Malvina Major at the ChristChurch Cathedral (2 pm Sunday 10 May), Spring Fever with Woolston Brass (17 Oct), Last Night of the Proms (7 Nov) and Hallelujah! with excerpts from Handel’s Messiah and Christmas carols (5 Dec).

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