On Saturday 11 May 2019 Voxcetera chamber choir and the Queldryk Choral Ensemble team up to present an evening of music by award-winning composer and arranger Paul Ayres. The concert will showcase the range of Paul’s output, from church music to opera, serious concert works to light-hearted arrangements.
For anyone who would like to listen to the music later online: please email to be sent the youtube links in due course – or to receive these updates automatically, subscribe to http://www.youtube.com/paulayres1970
One of the pieces receiving its UK premiere is *I would rather die than hate you*, commissioned last year by the University of California Berkeley Alumni Chorus, with these words by Martin Luther King:
… hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. And that is the tragedy of hate, that it doesn’t cut it off. It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love… Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love… So this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, “I love you. I would rather die than hate you”.
Also being heard for the first time in concert is the bilingual love-song *Quanto sei bella*, setting words from the Song of Songs, simultaneously in Italian and in English. Other sacred pieces include *The Finchley Service*, *The Lord my pasture shall prepare*, and *God be in my head*.
From Paul’s work in the area of musical theatre and opera is an excerpt from *The Crab That Played With The Sea*, based on Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories.
There are choral versions of the beautiful songs *Bless This House*, *Cry me a River* and *Goin’ Home*, while the 70s and 80s are represented by arrangements of *Waterloo* (ABBA) and *Nothing’s gonna stop us now* (Starship). For fans of public transport, we have *The Slow Train* and *A Transport of Delight* (Flanders & Swann) and Jay Foreman and Jon Gracey’s youtube hit *Every Tube Station* (whose lyrics are… well, every tube station).
The two choirs will be alternately conducted or accompanied by Jane Hopkins and Paul Ayres. And, while the singers have a breather, Jane and Paul perform a piano duet: *Mostly Bach’s Toccata and Fugue*. This is Bach’s famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor. But not quite.
Fresh Ayres: Saturday 11 May 2019, 7.30pm
St Barnabas Church, Pitshanger Lane, Ealing, W5 1QG
15 minutes’ walk from Hanger Lane tube. Bus E2 or E9 from Ealing Broadway station. Parking unrestricted on nearby roads.
Tickets £10 (£5 for under-18s)
All proceeds to Malaria No More, Shelter, and St Barnabas Choir fund.
www.voxcetera.co.uk
www.paulayres.co.uk
https://www.paulayres.co.uk/perf/item/811
https://www.facebook.com/events/426041254872279/
https://www.facebook.com/Voxcetera-161341867220238/
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/fresh-ayres-tickets-59579970295
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.