Under the direction of Simon Halsey, Come and Sing invites amateur singers from all backgrounds to a day of learning and exchange, a festive prelude to a concert shared with the public. An unforgettable musical experience!
Few works are as popular and instantly charismatic as Carl Orff’s celebrated Carmina Burana, which the composer assembled after discovering authentic medieval poems in 1935. Its unprecedented blend of the sacred and the profane (prayers and bawdy drinking songs), melodic allure and epic grandeur, Latin and High German, erupts into an irresistible secular cantata in which spirituality sits alongside thoroughly earthly concerns: luck, the return of spring, lust, and the pleasures of drinking and gambling… Conservative in outlook, Orff turned away from the modernism of Stravinski or Bartók, preferring to draw inspiration from the art of the Renaissance and early Baroque. Euphonious and seemingly simple, though demanding extreme precision in performance, his music has repeatedly captivated filmmakers (no one has forgotten the horseback scenes in Excalibur set to the chorus O Fortuna) and remains a unifying tribute to the magical charm (carmen) of music. That charm is especially palpable in the version for small ensemble, which audiences can discover or rediscover through this participatory concert. Cast Chœur de l'Orchestre de Paris Choeur d'enfants de l'Orchestre de Paris Simon Halsey, conductor Richard Wilberforce, choirmaster Emy Gazeilles, soprano Anthony Gregory, tenor Yannick Debus, baritone Rémi Aguirre Zubiri, choirmaster Edwin Baudo, choirmaster Evann Loget-Raymond, choirmaster
Source: paris.fr — photo: choeur de l'orchestre de paris © denis allard