On Sunday 9 May 2021 at 7pm, Virtual Circle – the Live-Streaming and digital content platform from HarrisonParrott – will present Voices of the German Resistance, a concert from award-winning vocal ensemble SANSARA and The White Rose Project featuring works by composers including J.S. Bach, William Byrd, Piers Kennedy and Philip Moore.
In 1943 five students and a lecturer at the University of Munich were executed. They had been members of The White Rose, a clandestine group that wrote and distributed pamphlets calling on Germans to resist Hitler. The members of The White Rose witnessed at first hand the persecution and suffering caused by Nazism and World War II. They had a passionate belief in the freedom of the individual and social responsibility and turned their outrage into action. As they boldly declared in one of their resistance pamphlets: ‘We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will never leave you in peace!’.
Voices of the German Resistance is a collaboration between the award-winning vocal ensemble SANSARA and The White Rose Project, a research and engagement initiative at the University of Oxford. Together, they are exploring the history of the White Rose through an exciting repertoire of choral music and through the resistance group’s writings in new English translations by students at the University of Oxford. These texts speak movingly of courage, conscience, and life under dictatorship.
Dr Alexandra Lloyd (University of Oxford) in conversation with Tom Herring (Artistic Director, SANSARA), will introduce the story of the White Rose and SANSARA’s project to bring this hidden history to English-speaking audiences. This will be followed by the concert recorded on 22 February 2020, marking the 77th anniversary of the first White Rose trials and executions, and SANSARA’s last live performance before lockdown.
Tom Herring, Artistic Director of SANSARA said: ‘Giving voice to powerful human stories is at the heart of SANSARA’s creative vision. Our collaboration with The White Rose Project combines a cappella choral music with readings of letters, diary entries and resistance pamphlets, drawing threads between texts to illuminate, articulate and provide space for reflection.’
SANSARA is an award-winning vocal collective uniting the next generation of choral artists with a vision to inspire, engage and connect people through choral music-making. Winners of the 2015 London International A Cappella Choir Competition, performance highlights include Barbican Sound Unbound, Kings Place, St John’s Smith Square, Holy Week Festival, Temple Winter Festival, Newbury Spring Festival, Budleigh Festival, Winchester Festival. The choir’s debut recording, Cloths of Heaven (Convivium Records, 2017) received high praise for its “perfect intonation and clean, pure sound” (The Observer) and “breath-taking interpretations” (Choir & Organ). The group’s second release, The Waiting Sky (Resonus Classics) was highlighted amongst 2019’s Christmas recordings by Gramophone, The Observer, and BBC Music Magazine. Both recordings have featured on BBC Radio 3 and 4 (The Choir, Breakfast, Essential Classics, The World Tonight).
Tickets for the streamed concerts can be purchased from https://www.emusiclive.com/Sansara/Virtual_Circle/White_Rose_GMT, priced at £5.
Four additional viewings of this concert will also be available with full details of the timings found here: https://www.emusiclive.com/Sansara.
Launched in December 2020, HarrisonParrott partnered with eMusic Live to create this new platform for classical music and the arts. Virtual Circle not only provides audiences with a ‘concert look and feel’ with engaging interactive features, but also in-platform promotional
opportunities for artists, something which is not offered by any other digital concert platforms, these include high-resolution album downloads, ticket bundles, and action buttons directing audiences to additional content.