Living Voices
Whitehall Choir gave the premiere performance of Russell Hepplewhite’s setting of Alice Oswald’s poem Riddle last year. Following this we were pleased to be asked if we would like to record the full 10 pieces in the Living Voices project.
Living Voices is a new collection of ten choral pieces with piano, all of which speak about an aspect of modern life, by Russell Hepplewhite. The idea for the collection came from the composer who invited ten outstanding British poets to create poetic responses to our world today. Their diverse reflections cover birth and death, youth and age, sickness and health, and landscape and memory. While some are light-hearted and comic, others are profound and moving. The poets are:
Mona Arshi; Pam Ayres; Fiona Benson; Joseph Coelho; Wendy Cope; Jamila Gavin; Roger McGough; Andrew Motion; Alice Oswald; Michael Rosen
We will be performing the full 10 pieces at our summer concert at St Paul’s Knightsbridge on Wednesday 24th June. Poets will introduce their pieces, Russell will speak. There will be other guests including teams from the publisher Stainer and Bell, and from the record label Firsthand records.
In addition to the 10 choral pieces, Russell has written 2 more pieces for solo baritone and piano with poems by current poet laureate Simon Armitage. The baritone will be Marcus Farnsworth who performed with Whitehall Choir some years ago and is in high demand in opera, song and concert. Marcus and Ian will perform the songs at the concert as well as recording them.
The record label Firsthand have some great artists in their catalogue. Likely release date will be January 2027.
This is an exciting project for our choir. It was tremendous to kick off our Living Voices rehearsals when Russell came to see us getting going on it!
We much look forward to seeing as many as possible on 24 June at the premiere performance of the full Living Voices cycle and to launching the full recording in early 2027. Do follow us on Instagram for excerpts and background notes!