John Williams & Hans Zimmer

PETE HARRISON CONDUCTOR
 
Hans Zimmer and John Williams are two of the greatest film music composers of all time, creating epic scores for some of the most iconic films ever made. Experience this incredible symphonic celebration of music from blockbusters such as Gladiator, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Superman, Batman Begins and of course Harry Potter and re-live your memories of hearing and seeing it for the first time.

In 1929 the BBC asked Walton to write an oratorio for small chorus, small orchestra and a vocal soloist.  The result was anything but small!  Belshazzar’s Feast, to a libretto by Osbert Sitwell, turned out to be on an epic scale.  It rejuvenated English oratorio writing, and audiences were surprised with a jazzy, perhaps slightly racy, shocker. Bernstein revisited the score of his wildy successful musical and extracted nine sections to assemble into what he called the Symphonic Dances. The famous opening confrontation of the Jets and the Sharks is followed by the strains ofSomewhere and the lively Latin dances of the Mambo and Cha-cha before the Cool fugue slides into the final, deadly Rumble, before ending on a haunting, unresolved chord. That Rhapsody in Blue became an American legend from its very first performance is down to Gershwin’s genius to tap into the spirit of his country drawing on American popular song and dance, African-American jazz, and the rhythm of the New York streets to create a potent new hybrid for the concert hall.

Life as a musician can feel inherently chaotic, unpredictable and out of control. In an effort to find some stability, some turn to food and/or exercise. A UCL study from 2017 showed that 1 in 3 musicians had history of an eating disorder, and yet finding a musician willing to speak about the destructive impact of an ED has been hard.

Opera singer, author and mind behind the Instagram account @brutalrecovery, Lauren McQuistin joins Hattie and Becca to explore her own relationship to food and addiction. Taking us through her experiences with body image on stage, we explore how and why the classical music industry can become a melting pot for disorder.

About TMDTA

Launched as a space for honesty out of founder Hattie Butterworth’s experience with obsessive compulsive disorder in music college, TMDTA’s conversations aren’t afraid to go deep quickly, getting real about the issues within the industry and personal lives of its performers. Now with trumpeter and activist Rebecca Toal, the duo are aiming to cultivate a space of honesty and accountability both through their podcast and now with live workshops, events and discussions in person. 

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Laure M Hiendl’s Seht meine Wunden for ensemble and electronics, first performed in 2022, deals with music as a spatial artform within the traditional concert setting. Its title and inspiration come from a disturbing line in Philosophy of World Relations, an essay by the Martinican writer, poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant.

This is the final concert in this season celebrating Eric Cross’s 40^th anniversary as Music Director of the Newcastle Bach Choir. The season’s programmes were chosen to reflect Eric’s particular musical interests, but also those of the choir.

Our first two concerts reflected the choir’s mission of performing Bach cantatas and newly composed British music. The summer concert has a more personal slant, with music by two composers central to Eric: Handel and Vivaldi. The choir has performed several Handel oratorios over the years, including Belshazzar, Israel in Egypt and Messiah. Here he is represented by his Coronation Anthems, written for the crowning of George II in 1727. They include Zadok the Priest, which has been sung at every coronation since.

Eric’s doctoral dissertation was on Vivaldi’s operas, many of them unknown at the time, and he has provided many specially edited scores for performances of them around the world. Our concert will include some Vivaldi arias, for which we are delighted to welcome back soprano and Vivaldi specialist Mhairi Lawson. The choir also perform two rarely heard sacred works: the Credo and Domine ad adiuvandum me. 

Finally, the Miserere in C minor by Jan Dismas Zelenka - an exact contemporary of Handel and Vivaldi - was first performed by the choir in 2013. Its highly original opening with dramatic dotted rhythms in the orchestra immediately shows why he was so highly regarded in his day.