The King's Singers Present: Angels & Demons

---

Tell us a little about “Angels and Demons.” What was your source of inspiration for the program and title?

The spine of this very special programme is a commissioned work by the British composer Geoffrey Poole. It's called 'Wymondham Chants' and was actually the very first major work the group commissioned, back in 1970. It uses old English texts (and one latin one) to imagine what life was like in the ruined medieval abbey of Wymondham, in the south east England. The four movements, which we sing interspersed through the programme, focus on different 'characters', the first being 'Ave rex angelorum' (King of Angels) and the second 'Tuttivilus', the name for a demon spirit who disrupts the services. This gave us a neat frame through which to choose the other music around the 'Wymondham Chants'. The idea of Angels and Demons is also a theme that allows us to explore good and evil, light and dark, which gives us a wide-ranging thematic canvas!

What are your personal favorite works to perform from “Angels and Demons?"

The 'Wymondham Chants' are truly special and dramatic, and written specifically for our unusual range of voices, so these are some of our favourites in the programme. But equally, it gives us chance to sing some very famous and well-loved choral music like Duruflé's 'Ubi caritas' and William Byrd's thrilling motet 'Haec dies' (which opens the concert). In the surroundings of Washington National Cathedral, 'Blessed Jesu' (the final movement of 'Wymondham Chants') will be particularly special in how it uses the performance space.

What do you find most compelling about choral music to modern society?

The more, and the faster, that our world changes, the more ways there are that choral music has a special and valuable place in society. In a world of increasing disconnection, choral music involves people to come together and working towards a common goal. In a world where people sit in ideological and political silos, choral music requires listening, adaptation and compromise. In a world increasingly lived in a virtual digital domain, choral music is inherently 'real': its very essence is intricately coordinated sound waves, generated by humans, filling a physical space and then eliciting emotions, memories and ideas in listeners. All of this is intensely embodied and analogue in a way which is I think a tonic against the saddest parts of so-called human progress.

Thank you to Bucklesweet for arranging this interview with The King's Singers!