About Mass for the Endangered
Performers
Three Choirs Festival Chorus
Philharmonia Orchestra
Samuel Hudson conductor
Programme
Cameron Biles-Liddell Yr Afon Yn Yr Awyr 12' English premiere
Judith Weir O Sweet Spontaneous Earth 12'
Elgar Serenade for Strings 13'
Sarah Kirkland Snider Mass for the Endangered 44' UK Premiere
Music of intense beauty combines with incredibly powerful words in Mass for the Endangered, a celebration of and lament for the natural world. Drawing on her love of choral music from Gregorian Chant and Palestrina to Mozart, Fauré and Britten, Sarah Kirkland Snider creates a prayerful twist on the mass, rooted in spiritual contemplation and concern for the world around us. This is a stunning, immersive soundscape which will leave you profoundly moved. The concert opens with Cameron Biles-Liddell’s Yr Afon Yn Yr Awyr (The River in the Sky), a playful depiction of the River Dee flowing through the Welsh landscape, followed by Judith Weir’s setting of three poems reflecting on our relationship with our planet, and Elgar’s much-loved Serenade for Strings, a favourite of the composer himself.
