When We Were Children

“I wanted to make something that shared the spiritual questioning of the passion and was also somehow appropriate for children”.  (David Lang) With the world premiere of Lang’s When we were children as the centerpiece, we take a child-like journey from Lang’s take on the words of St Paul, through to the Brothers Grimm folktale, The Musicians of Bremen featuring a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster! The child-like references continue with a tribute to Steve Martland and Sir John Tavener – two of the world’s leading lights in contemporary music whom we lost in 2013 – in Martland’s take on the folksong Dance to your daddy and in complete contrast, Tavener’s The Lamb. David Lang rose to prominence with his Pulitzer prize-winning work The Little Match Girl Passion which subsequently went on to win a Grammy award for Best Small Ensemble Performance in 2009 in a Harmonia Mundi recording directed by Paul Hillier (with Theatre of Voices and Ars Nova).  The long association between Paul Hillier and David Lang continues with this world premiere of When we were children. Pre-concert talks for both concerts take place at 7.15pm in each venue.