Jeffrey's 2009/10 Season Message
It seems incredible that Ex Cathedra is already celebrating its 40th anniversary. In some ways the years have flown past and the group is still as fresh and visionary as ever. We have achieved a great deal over these years and many people have been involved, but there is still much to do.
We have never taken the easy or popular route and so at this time when people are looking for excellence, belief, reliability, and confidence in an uncertain world, I think we provide it!
Our Anniversary season shows Ex Cathedra’s qualities at their best. We celebrate tradition and make new work accessible; we want to spread the word, and we have an insatiable desire to encourage first access. There is a nationwide revolution in singing taking place and Ex Cathedra is at the forefront of these developments.
In this special year we will perform Elgar’s powerful Dream of Gerontius and Bach’s great Mass in B Minor in Birmingham’s famous Town Hall, and a thousand years of sacred music in England’s first Oratory. You can hear music from Latin America with its unique blend of European, African and Amero-Indian influences, and music from pre-Revolution Russia. There are commissions from James MacMillan and Alec Roth and newly researched music from Bourbon France. And, of course there is the best Christmas Music ever written. On Good Friday in Symphony Hall we preserve and break tradition with a performance of Bach’s St John Passion using period instruments and in German!
Ex Cathedra is a success story for the city, the region and the country. Its strength is its community of dedicated musicians. John Henry Newman expressed it as ‘the voice of friends’. Ex Cathedra XL is not to be missed – come and join us and find out how this ‘world class’ ensemble has evolved in the heart of our country.
