St Mary's Church
South Creake, Fakenham
NR21 9LX
Rory McLeery’s vocal ensemble performs a rich and varied programme of renaissance and contemporary works to reflect on Mary, who has been celebrated and venerated in Catholic motets and antiphons since the Middle Ages at the North Norfolk Music Festival. The highly distinguished vocal ensemble presents a programme of music by Ludford, Tallis, Parsons, Byrd, Britten, Panufnik, Dodgson, Weir and McDowall.
Works range from the simple lullaby Dormi Jesu by Stephen Dodgson, miraculous cascades of sound by Tallis, Britten’s Hymn to the Virgin, Roxana Panufnik’s complex and emotional Magnificat and Judith Weir’s ebullient Ave Regina Caelorum.
Pre-pandemic, the group both recorded and toured the exquisite Dormi Jesu as part of their ‘Queen of Heaven’ programme.
Taking its name from the Blessed Virgin Mary, a focus of religious devotion in the sacred music of all ages, the Marian Consort is a young, dynamic and internationally-renowned early music vocal ensemble. This ‘astounding’ (The Herald) ensemble has given concerts throughout the UK and Europe, features regularly on BBC Radio 3, and is a former ‘Young Artist’ of The Brighton Early Music Festival. Tonight’s programme, features settings by English Renaissance composers Robert Fayrfax, Walter Lambe and John Taverner juxtaposed with contemporary Marian works by Cecilia McDowall, Bedford-based Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Judith Weir, Roxanna Panufnik, Matthew Martin and Hilary Campbell.
