Summer Spectacular!

Rugby School Department of Music presents
Summer Spectacular!Rugby Symphony Orchestra
Rugby School Concert Band
Arnold Singers of Rugby School
Temple Consort of Rugby School
Rugby Choristers at Bilton Grange
Conductors: Tansy Castledine and Ian FosterProgramme:
Bernstein Chichester Psalms
Sibelius Karelia Suite
Strauss Festmusik der Stadt Wien
Hans Zimmer Interstellar: Mountains, Cornfield Chase, S.T.A.Y.
Bernstein West Side Story
Parry Blest pair of sirensPlaces, pulses, and all the possibility of harmonyTonights concert travels a journey from cathedral and city squares to open landscapes, star-fields, and the streets of New York. It brings together music shaped by place, driven by pulse, and animated by the human desire for harmony.We begin this evening with Bernsteins Chichester Psalms, whose Hebrew texts and buoyant rhythms marry together prayer and theatre. It is music of community and courage reflecting both complexity and clarity, and whilst it is unmistakably prayerful it also has modern twists to challenge the ears in the form of dissonance, instrumentation, rhythmic drive with uneven time signatures, and a wide range of percussion instruments to complement the organ and harp writing. From there, Sibeliuss Karelia Suite carries us outdoors: noble horns, open-air marches, and folk inflections evoke a people and their landscape, in a music that sounds like home even to those hearing it for the first time. If Karelia looks outward to nation and nature, Strausss Festmusik der Stadt Wien looks more inward to civic ceremonyimagine being surrounded by gleaming brass architecture, fanfare and flourish, and all the grandeur of a city greeting the world. A ceremonial brass and percussion piece composed by Richard Strauss in 1943, it was dedicated to the Vienna City Council as a thank you from him, for being awarded the Beethoven Prize in the previous year. The piece was commissioned by the Trompetenchor der Stadt Wien (Brass Choir from the City of Vienna) and this ensemble was made up from the brass players of the three symphony orchestras in Vienna, and comprised twelve trumpets, eight trombones, two tubas, timpani and percussion. A feast for the senses!The same architectural instinct shapes the film music selection for this evening: in Zimmers music from Interstellar (Mountains, Cornfield Chase, S.T.A.Y.), pulse becomes propulsion. Ticking figures, weightless harmonies, and relentless crescendos suggest times elasticity providing us music that holds both the intimate and the infinite. We move from film to stage and screen in returning to Bernstein and selections from West Side Story, where the heartbeat of the city turns to dance, encounter, and hope. Where he married prayer and theatre in the Chichester Psalms, we now hear Bernstein bringing together the sacred and the streetwise being two sides of the same voice: syncopation and lyric song trying to reconcile their differences. That search to some degree finds its final answer in Parrys Blest Pair of SirensMiltons vision of one equal music where voice and verse, earth and heaven, are brought into harmony. Commissioned for Queen Victorias Golden Jubilee, Blest pair of sirens was first performed by the Bach Choir with Stanford conducting, at St Jamess Hall on 17 May 1887. To use Parrys own words, the piece was quite uproariously received and the composer was greeted with shouts from the audience. With 8-part counterpoint, its gut-wrenching melodies match the structure of Miltons ode exquisitely, as we hear a drama usually expected from Parrys European predecessors and bringing the concert to a close with divine sounds and high raised phantasy.Running Time: 60 mins, no intervalAll artists are subject to availability and may change.
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