Skip to main content.

Sinfonia Viva: Invocation at Bury St Edmunds Festival

Friday 25th May 2012 at 7.30pm
The Apex, Charter Square, Bury St Edmunds
Tickets: £18, £13 (£5 aged 21 and under)
Box Office: 01284 758000
Visit the Festival website for further booking details

Bode Lawal

The programme includes:

Sinfonia Viva takes the stage at Bury St Edmunds Festival bringing a bright, fresh programme combining modern and established repertoire. The Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas Kok, is joined by cellist Matthew Barley and dancer/choreographer Bode Lawal.

The concert opens with a focus on Matthew Barley. Bach's Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello were composed over a six year period around 1720 and the delightful Suite No.1, from which Matthew will play the Prelude, Sarabande and Gigue, is arguably the most engaging of the set, the opening movement being widely used in television and movie scores. This is followed by Tavener's 1995 composition, Chant for Solo Cello, which he composed in response to the death of a close friend.

Dvorak's career was in its ascendancy when in 1878 he composed the Serenade in D minor, which received its first performance with the composer conducting in Prague during the winter of that year. The version we hear most often today is the 20th century revision of the work done by František Hertl.

Arvo Pärt's Fratres dates from 1977 and displays the trademark 'tintinnabuli' features which typify the change in approach the composer's work took from the early 1970s onwards. Pärt's studies of plainsong and Gregorian chant together with investigations of the origins of European music also influenced the subsequent development and revision of the piece into more than a dozen arrangements. It is the original of that collection which we hear today.

Invocation by composer, producer and pioneer of African Classical Music Tunde Jegede has been co-commissioned by Sinfonia Viva and Orchestras Live for performance this year, with dance / choreography by Bode Lawal. Tunde says of the piece: "Invocation is a cello concerto with a poetic narrative in 7 parts and is also uniquely an artistic conversation between the soloist, dancer and orchestra. The piece draws from the concepts and cosmology of the Yoruba Orisha tradition, a religious belief system which is still practised in Nigeria and throughout the African Diaspora in places such as Brazil, Cuba and the USA. The Western Classical influences on the piece include Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and the Kabalevsky and Shostakovich Cello Concertos for their energy, rhythmic drive and treatment of the cello/orchestra form and genre and of course Bach with his eternal melodies."

Supported by Arts Council England. Invocation has been co-commissioned by Orchestras Live and Sinfonia Viva supported by PRS for Music Foundation.