GCF: Event 5 / Eternal Song

What if artistic risk was itself a form of faith—rebellion not against tradition, but towards something beyond it?Soprano Rose Stachniewska (Samling Artist, Britten Pears Young Artist) and pianist Dylan Perez (nominated for a 2026 International Classical Music Award) curate a programme of piano and song spanning nearly a thousand years of musical mysticism: works shaped by devotion, experimentation and the pursuit of the unknown.The trailblazing music of Olivier Messiaen has its genesis in birdsong and colour; forces just as foundational to the composer as Catholic doctrine and global mysticism.

In framing Messiaen’s songs with music by Bach, alongside Josephine Foster’s folk-inflected setting of poetry by William Blake, this programme reveals a golden thread of spirituality connecting artistic pioneers across centuries.

Settle into the cathedral’s lower church for an early evening song recital alive with wonder, daring and the thrill of transformation.