This years’s Spitalfields Music Festival (1st–9th Dec) will examine the connections that span many centuries and genres of English music, seeking out connections between old and new.
On 4th the Coveyard, a group of musicians ‘committed to rearrangement, reinterpretation and reinvention’ will explore the songs of Henry Purcell through the prism of rock music. There will be five productions (4th–9th) of composer Shiva Feshareki’s site-site-specific work Unknown, Rememebered, which combines Handel’s La Lucrezia with a setting of lyrics by Joy Division and Haroon Mirza’s film installation The Last Tape. The music of an American composer with a profound understanding of the English choral tradition, Nico Muhly, will be explored alongside music by Renaissance masters John Sheppard and Thomas Tallis on 7th.
There will also be a focus upon Canadian musicians and composers. These include the music of Nicole Lizée, Christopher Mayo and Richard Reed Parry in a concert on 5th. Parry’s piece is based upon his own heartbeat, an idea that has been taken as a starting point for a composing project with local primary schools performed on the previous day.
On 6th there will be an another chance to experience a site-specific work by Shiva Feshareki, her GABA-analogue, in which the audience will be invited to walk amongst the players and around the space. The concert will also include Anna Meredith’s Barchan and a performance of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.
The festival takes place in venues across Tower Hamlets, London.