Easter at King's was started in 2004 and has grown into an enormously popular series of concerts and services for the Easter period. Some of the concerts and services are broadcast on BBC Radio 3. A service recorded for television, 'Easter from King's', is broadcast by BBC2 over the Easter period.
Enquiries: For general enquiries please contact the series organiser, Sarah Chambre (concerts [at] kings [dot] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk).
Exploring the Passion
3 April 2012, 2.00pm
Corpus Playroom, St Edward's Passage
John Butt
An afternoon with leading Bach scholar Professor John Butt, who explores Bach’s St Matthew Passion. John will be joined by James Gilchrist and David Wilson-Johnson in conversation about the Passion and the roles of the Evangelist and Christus. This precedes the performance of the Passion at King's later in the day.
Tickets: £7.50 (£3 students), available from The Shop at King’s, 13 King’s Parade, Cambridge CB2 1SP (01223 769340; shop [at] kings [dot] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk). Opening hours: Monday – Saturday 9.30am–5.30pm, Sunday 10.00am–4.30pm.
With kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College and the ADC committee.
Bach: St Matthew Passion
3 April 2012, 6.30pm
The Chapel
King's College Choir
Bach: St Matthew Passion
James Gilchrist, Evangelist
David Wilson-Johnson, Christ
Richard Lloyd Morgan, Pilate
Sophie Bevan, soprano
James Laing, counter-tenor
Thomas Walker, tenor
Lukas Jakobski bass
King’s College Choir
Choristers of Jesus and St Catharine’s Colleges
Academy of Ancient Music
Stephen Cleobury, conductor
Tickets: SOLD OUT
With generous support from Robin Boyle.
Rumours of Passion
4 April 2012, 5.30pm
Clare College Chapel
Micheal O'Siadhail
A sequence of music, readings and poetry based on the strange
and stirring Servant Songs of Isaiah takes place in the intimate
setting of Clare College Chapel. The evening includes four poems
by distinguished Irish poet Micheal O’Siadhail, especially
commissioned for the occasion and read by the poet.
Victoria: Vere languores nostros
Begbie: O you whose love laid out our skies
Holst: Nunc dimittis
Gesualdo: Ecce vidimus eum
Spiritual: He never said a mumbling word (arr. Toby Young)
Tavener: Nunc dimittis
The Cambridge-Duke Voices
Toby Young, conductor
Micheal O’Siadhail, reader
Tickets: unreserved £12 (£5 student standby), available from The Shop at King’s, 13 King’s Parade, Cambridge CB2 1SP (01223 769340; shop [at] kings [dot] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk). Opening hours: Monday – Saturday 9.30am–5.30pm, Sunday 10.00am–4.30pm.
With the generous support of the Bible Society.
Illuminating Messiaen exhibition
5 April 2012, 11.00am
Corpus Playroom, St Edward's Passage
Throughout his composing life Olivier Messiaen thought in highly
visual terms – he wanted his music to dazzle and overwhelm us
like glorious light through stained glass windows. This photography
exhibition, by members of Duke Divinity School, takes its inspiration
from the Visions de l’Amen, one of his most colourful works.
Discover a new angle on the music, ahead of the evening concert.
Free and open to the public.
With thanks to Duke Divinity School, Duke University, North Carolina.
Sung Eucharist and Stripping of the Altar
5 April 2012, 5.30pm
The Chapel
Frank Martin: Movements from the Mass for double choir
King’s College Choir
Preacher: Dr Richard Hays, Dean of Duke University Divinity School, North Carolina
Illuminating Messiaen (talk)
5 April 2012, 7.00pm
Corpus Playroom, St Edward's Passage
David Owen Norris
Distinguished pianist, composer and broadcaster David Owen Norris
presents an introduction to Olivier Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen,
which is to be performed in the Chapel immediately afterwards.
David’s talk will draw on an exhibition of photographs,
“Illuminating Messiaen”, inspired by the music and displayed
during the performance.
Admission free to ticketholders for the 8pm concert. Please book, as places are limited. Booking: Shop at King’s, King's Parade, Cambridge (tel: 01223 769 340; email: shop [at] kings [dot] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk).
Chamber Music for Maundy Thursday
5 April 2012, 8.00pm
The Chapel
Cordelia Williams
Written in the midst of the Second World War in occupied France, Messiaen’s spectacular Visions de l’Amen for two pianos is one of his most well-known and accessible pieces, encompassing a huge range of emotion and pianistic virtuosity.
Messiaen paints a vast panorama in sound, depicting the passage from the World's Creation to its re-creation, including at its centre a profound meditation on Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane.
Tickets: unreserved £15 (£5 student standby), available from The Shop at King’s, 13 King’s Parade, Cambridge CB2 1SP (01223 769340; shop [at] kings [dot] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk). Opening hours: Monday – Saturday 9.30am–5.30pm, Sunday 10.00am–4.30pm.
Meditation for Maundy Thursday
5 April 2012, 9.30pm
The Chapel
Richard Lloyd Morgan
Couperin: Leçons de te´ne`bres
Cressida Sharp, soprano
Margaret Carpenter, soprano
Richard Boothby, viola da gamba
Tim Brown, organ continuo
Richard Lloyd Morgan, cantor
Admission free. A retiring collection will be taken to defray the costs of the performance.
With generous support from Tim Brown.
Ante-Communion and Veneration of the Cross
6 April 2012, 10.30am
The Chapel
Allegri: Miserere mei, Deus
Victoria: St John Passion
King’s College Choir
Good Friday Choral Evensong
6 April 2012, 5.30pm
The Chapel
Tallis: The Lamentations of Jeremiah (Part 2)
Choral Scholars of King’s College
MacMillan: Seven Last Words from the Cross
6 April 2012, 7.30pm
The Chapel
King's College Choir
“... MacMillan's masterpiece ... the maturity in this composition is
astounding: the tonal structure of the seven settings, harmony
which can be spare or lush without ever being overwritten, an
inexorable sense of the drama in the text, the balance between
voice and strings. A few seconds, in difficult times, when meditation
was centre stage, when it was possible to regain optimism.”
Guardian (on Seven Last Words)
MacMillan’s tour de force is partnered by Palestrina’s intense
depiction of Mary, mother of Jesus, at the foot of the Cross and
Tavener’s meditation on “O my people, what have I done to
you?” The expressive solo cello and serene strings present
unwavering faith against the sound and fury of the timpani.
MacMillan: Kiss on Wood
Palestrina: Stabat Mater
Tavener: Popule Meus
MacMillan: Seven Last Words from the Cross
Guy Johnston, cello
King’s College Choir
Britten Sinfonia
Stephen Cleobury, conductor
Tickets: £30, £22, £18, £12 (£5 student standby), available from The Shop at King’s, 13 King’s Parade, Cambridge CB2 1SP (01223 769340; shop [at] kings [dot] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk). Opening hours: Monday – Saturday 9.30am–5.30pm, Sunday 10.00am–4.30pm.
Elgar: The Apostles
7 April 2012, 7.00pm
The Chapel
Ailish Tynan
“You are a great magician” wrote A.C. Benson to Elgar after The
Apostles was first performed in King’s College Chapel in 1906.
“Upon me it produced an extraordinary effect – the beauty of
certain movements is incredible – out of the reach of art. I can’t
conceive the process by which you dreamed of such sounds.” Such
is the deeply moving experience in store for the audience that
comes to King’s Chapel this Holy Saturday to hear in the words
and music of this great oratorio the story of Christ’s apostles,
from their calling, through to the events at Golgotha and the
Sepulchre, to the Resurrection.
Elgar: The Apostles
Ailish Tynan, Blessed Virgin/Angel Gabriel
Susan Bickley, Mary Magdalene
Timothy Robinson, St John/Narrator
Mark Stone, St Peter
Roderick Williams, Jesus
David Wilson-Johnson, Judas
Philharmonia Chorus
BBC Concert Orchestra
Stephen Cleobury conductor
Tickets: £40, £30, £22, £18 (£5 student standby), available from The Shop at King’s, 13 King’s Parade, Cambridge CB2 1SP (01223 769340; shop [at] kings [dot] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk). Opening hours: Monday – Saturday 9.30am–5.30pm, Sunday 10.00am–4.30pm.
The concert is being recorded by BBC Radio 3 and must start punctually. Please arrive in good time; latecomers will not be admitted until the interval.
Easter Sunday Sung Eucharist with Procession
8 April 2012, 10.30am
The Chapel
Haydn: Kleine orgelmesse
King’s College Choir
accompanied by a string ensemble
Festal Evensong
8 April 2012, 3.30pm
The Chapel
Howells: Collegium Regale
Vaughan Williams: Rise Heart, thy Lord is Risen
King’s College Choir
Organ recital for Eastertide
9 April 2012, 4.00pm
The Chapel
John Butt
Bach’s preludes on Easter chorales (from Das ‘Orgelbüchlein’) and
the three central pieces from Messiaen’s Livre du Saint Sacrement
form the core of this programme. These two composers have most
obviously provided a bridge between liturgical organ music and the
wider world of western classical music. Reger’s concise ‘Dankpsalm’,
based around hymn tunes, offers an obvious development of Bach’s
idiom in late Romantic guise. Marcel Dupré’s second symphony is
not – unlike so much of his organ music – specifically associated
with religious devotion, but is perhaps his boldest work in the
modernist musical language of the late 1920s.
JS Bach: Prelude and Fugue in C, BWV 547
JS Bach: Preludes from Das ‘Orgelbüchlein’, BWV 625-630
Reger: ‘Dankpsalm’, op 145 no 2
Messiaen: Pieces from Livre du Saint Sacrement
Dupré: Deuxième Symphonie, op 26
John Butt, organ
Tickets: £10 (£5 students), available from The Shop at King’s, 13 King’s Parade, Cambridge CB2 1SP (01223 769340; shop [at] kings [dot] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk). Opening hours: Monday – Saturday 9.30am–5.30pm, Sunday 10.00am–4.30pm.
