Birdchant, Bernard Hughes’s BBC Proms commission from 2021 is being performed again by the BBC Singers at the Keble Early Music festival on Friday 25 February. It will be part of a programme combining old choral pieces with contemporary responses to them. Birdchant is based on Clément Janequin’s Le Chant des Oiseaux and will end the concert. The BBC Singers will be conducted by Chief Conductor Sofi Jeanin in the chapel of Keble College. Tickets are available now.
The London-based chamber choir Londinium is performing Bernard Hughes’s Two Choral Fanfares as part of its Silence and Music concert, celebrating their return to singing, on Friday 15 October 2021. Londinium previously sang Bernard’s A Medieval Bestiary and this concert also features music by Leighton, Briggs and Vaughan Williams. Tickets for the concert, at St Gabriel’s in Pimlico, are available now.
Bernard Hughes’s BBC commission Birdchant is be premiered in the BBC Proms 2021. Written for the BBC Singers and their chief conductor Sofi Jeanin it will be heard at the Royal Albert Hall on 19 August, in a programme of new choral responses to older works. Birdchant takes as its starting point Clement Janequin’s Le Chant des Oyseaux and is programmed alongside new music by Nico Muhly and Shiva Feshareki.
Bernard Hughes’s choral work I Sing of Love has been nominated for the prestigious Ivors Composer Awards. Written for the Seattle Pro Musica, Seen and Heard International said of the premiere ‘the style is approachable but not bland; and the piece moves to its expressive climax with a strong sense of inevitability.’ I Sing of Love received its UK premiere in January by the BBC Singers, conducted by Eamonn Dougan, and has been shortlisted in the Choral category of this year’s awards. The winners will be announced on 1 December in a broadcast on BBC Radio 3. (Listen to I Sing of Love on Spotify or YouTube.)
The new album Not Now, Bernard & Other Stories, featuring music by Bernard Hughes, narrated by Alexander Armstrong, was released in all formats on 7 February 2020. It has been a no.1 ‘Hot Release’ on Amazon.co.uk and reviewed on the Classical Review. See the Orchid Classics album page for more information and links.
Not Now, Bernard and Other Stories, a new album of music for all the family, featuring premiere recordings of music by Bernard Hughes, Judith Weir and Malcolm Arnold, and narrated by Alexander Armstrong, is now available for pre-order from Amazon or Presto Classical. The album features the Orchestra of the Swan, conducted by Tom Hammond, and will be released on Orchid Classics on 7 February 2020.
The award-winning Farnham Youth Choir will be performing Bernard Hughes’s upper-voice carol ‘Awake, glad heart’ on Saturday 14 December, as part of their Christmas concert. FYC, twice UK Choir of the Year, recently won gold at the European Choir Games in Gothenburg. The performance will be conducted by the artistic director Joanna Tomlinson at the Farnham Maltings in a concert marking the choir’s 35th anniversary. ‘Awake, glad heart’ is published by Wild Woods Music.
Bernard Hughes’s setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis will be premiered by the chapel choir of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge at Evening Prayer on Sunday 17 November 2019. Written specially for the choir, the setting for SATB choir and organ will be conducted by the college’s director of music, Catherine Groom. The service is at 6.30pm and open to the public.
