Today (Thursday 9 September 2021), St Martin-in-the-Fields announces a series of concerts this autumn performed by St Martin’s Voices in churches throughout the country.
The first part of the tour covers the South of England and runs from 1 – 30 October where St Martin’s Voices On Tour will cover nine venues from Devon to Norfolk, Gloucestershire to Cambridgeshire. The Northern part of the tour will run in November and will be announced in due course.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, St Martin’s Voices has partnered with the Church of England and the Royal School of Church Music to record music for churches to use in their online services.
The night before lockdown in March 2020, members of St Martin’s Voices gathered in a dimly lit St Martin-in-the-Fields for one final time to record the music for a service led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, broadcast to the nation on the BBC. The service opened with the hymn ‘Lord of all hopefulness’. Each hour-long concert on the tour reflects on themes of love, hope, joy and peace, all taken from this much-loved hymn, and includes music drawn from over four centuries of choral masterpieces, including works by Thomas Tallis, Hubert Parry, John Stainer, Amy Beach, Ola Gjeilo and James MacMillan.
Some concerts will be followed by a vocal workshop which will include music on the theme of our world and environment, ahead of the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference 2021. The workshop is for all abilities and open to anyone within the community. In addition to this, St Martin’s Voices will sing in several services of music and spoken reflections during their visits, extending the Great Sacred Music series that regularly takes place at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London.
Andrew Earis, Director of Music at St Martin-in-the-Fields said: ‘At a time when congregational singing was prohibited and choirs unable to perform, it was hugely rewarding to be able to contribute our music to the continuation of worship across the country. Our hymns have been downloaded well over 1 million times now and so have been a huge part of the religious services taking place remotely across the country, touching so many people’s lives. We are hugely looking forward to meeting the communities with whom we have worked over the past 18 months and hope that you will enjoy meeting the musicians whose voices you have heard every week.’
For further information, visit www.smitf.org/tour.