The People's Passion, to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in Holy Week 2012, looks at modern life in cathedrals across the land in five new dramas, documentaries and specially commissioned choral music.
Cathedrals still dominate Britain’s cities – once symbols of temporal power, technological wonder and musical heritage – The People’s Passion explores what they mean to us today.
The choral music for The People’s Passion is a mass setting and anthem specially commissioned for the project in a unique collaboration between acclaimed poet Michael Symmons Roberts and Manchester Carols composer Sasha Johnson Manning. The music, threaded throughout both the plays and documentaries, will be made freely available through the BBC Radio 4 website to choirs around the country.
Choirs across the land are invited to learn the new choral piece to be performed during Easter weekend when the piece will be premiered on Radio 4’s Sunday Worship from Manchester Cathedral on Easter Sunday morning.
The aim is to encourage choirs of all kinds – school choirs, community choirs, cathedral choirs and choral ensembles – to perform the same new music in the same week.
To register interest, download the sheet music and find out more about the project, visit the Radio 4 website.
BBC Local Radio will follow choirs in their area as they prepare for Easter, linking features about their choirs and their own local Cathedrals to The People's Passion website.
Christine Morgan, Head of Radio, BBC Religion & Ethics, said: “It’s very exciting that BBC Radio 4 have commissioned a brand new piece of music for Easter 2012 and we hope that choirs of all styles, across the country, will go to the Radio 4 website and download the music from The People’s Passion page and get singing.”
The five new plays penned by award-winning playwright Nick Warburton for The People’s Passion are set in a fictional cathedral and based on the daily life of the people who live, work and visit there – each play centres on a different character.
The dramas are accompanied by five documentaries which invite selected visitors to five of Britain’s cathedrals to engage in conversation with the themes of the dramas.
The People’s Passion is a partnership between BBC Religion and Ethics, BBC Radio Drama and BBC Local Radio.
(Source : BBC Press Release)
No comments:
Post a Comment