Event Details

Event description

A new, cutting-edge work celebrating the voices of six trailblazing women poets across a millennium of Chinese history through the power of choral theatre. Through war, exile, love, loss and displacement, their poems record not only personal emotion, but also the fragile continuity of culture and memory.

The Music

Composers Alex Ho and Rockey Sun Keting collaborate with the renowned author Yilin Wang to present a unique theatrical experience in which singers, barefoot, will spread charcoal on fabric creating a visually stunning artwork different for every iteration of the programme.

Tangram lead an interdisciplinary team to reimagine the emotional power of the collective sung voice. Melding newly composed choral music with staging and visual design, Chronicle 时•录 is a first collaboration between Tangram and SANSARA, one of the UK’s finest choirs described as ‘exquisite… a superb and sensitive vocal ensemble’ (Gramophone).

According to Rockey Sun Keting, ‘This project speaks to the core of who I am as an artist, someone drawn to the space between memory and history, language and sound. It’s a chance to bring ancient Eastern poetic traditions into dialogue with contemporary choral music, and to give voice to women across time through a modern lens.’

The Performers

Chronicle 时•录 is co-commissioned by SANSARA and Nederlands Kamerkoor, with support from Arts Council England, PRS Foundation, The Radcliffe Trust, The Leche Trust, Vaughan Williams Foundation, Cockayne Grants for the Arts, and Britten Pears Arts.

Sansara was exquisitely polished in a score that blends English folk music, the Anglican choral tradition and hints at Chinese idioms.

Flora Wilson, The Guardian