Bernard Hughes’s new introit Seek the Peace of the City, commissioned by the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, will be premiered as part of Choral Evensong on Wednesday 15 May. The service will be broadcast live on at 3.30pm BBC Radio 3 from St Pancras Parish Church in London, conducted by Christopher Batchelor, and will also include new music by Sarah Cattley, Joshua Ballance, Deborah Pritchard and Alex Woolf.
Bernard Hughes’s setting of the Benedicite will receive its world premiere at Jesus College, Cambridge in May 2019. The anthem, setting a text from the Book of Common Prayer, will be performed as part of Choral Evensong at 6pm on Sunday 26 May, sung by the college choir and conducted by the college’s Director of Music, Richard Pinel. The service is open to the public.
Bernard’s pair of pieces for narrator and symphony orchestra Bernard & Isabel is receiving its latest performance by the Camden Symphony Orchestra on Saturday 23 March, as part of the orchestra’s family concert. Based on two classic stories by the author and illustrator David McKee, Bernard Hughes’s settings have been widely performed since their premiere in 2009. The Camden SO performance will be conducted by Lev Parikian at St John’s Waterloo at 3pm on 23 March - tickets are available now.
Bernard’s piece for narrator and orchestra The Knight Who Took All Day is getting its latest performance by the City of Southampton Orchestra on Saturday 19 January 2018. The story is about a knight who is keen to take on the fiery dragon but is just too busy getting ready. The Knight is a musical setting of the book by James Mayhew, who will be live illustrating the performance in his inimitable style, with narration by Phil Cheesman and John Traill conducting. The concerts are at 11am and 2pm on 19 January at Central Hall, Southampton and tickets are available now.
Bernard’s The Shepherds’ Carol is being sung by the Lloyd’s Choir as part of their annual carol service on Thursday 13 December 2018. The concert, conducted by musical director Jacques Cohen will be at 6.45 at St Katharine Cree church EC3A 3DH. The Lloyd’s Choir is a 75-strong choir taking its singers from the financial community of the City of London, and the concert is open to the public (tickets £15).
Bernard Hughes’s The Winter it is Past, in a new arrangement, features in Snow Queens, the forthcoming release by Juice Vocal Ensemble on Resonus Classics. A setting of a beautiful, bleak poem by Robert Burns, the original version, for SATB choir, was included on Bernard’s album I am the Song. This new arrangement was made specially for the Snow Queens project.
The album will shortly be available for pre-order and tickets are now available for the album launch at Kings Place in London on Sunday 9 December 2018.
Bernard Hughes's choral setting of Siegfried Sassoon Everyone Sang is being performed at the 2018 Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy. The performance, conducted by Paul Brough, will be part of a Sequence of Music and Readings at 8pm on Thursday 23 August at Edington Priory Church in Wiltshire. Everyone Sang appears on Bernard's choral album I am the Song, also conducted by Paul Brough.
Bernard Hughes's large-scale choral piece A Medieval Bestiary, setting a cornucopia of animal poetry from the middle ages, is being performed on 5 October 2018 by Londinium Choir, conducted by Andrew Griffiths. Tickets are now available for the concert at St John's, Waterloo in London. A Medieval Bestiary features on I am the Song, performed by the BBC Singers, who commissioned it in 2011.
