OPUS ANGLICANUM

Latest album ADORNA with Jason Rebello

“Assured and polished.”

— Classic FM

“‘Expect true class.’”

— The Guardian

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“Every item is a distinctive delight, beautifully sung, interspersed with perfectly judged readings.”

— Dame Emma Kirkby

OPUS ANGLICANUM

Hailed as “true class” by The Guardian and “assured and polished” by Classical Music magazine, male vocal quintet Opus Anglicanum has gained a reputation for unique programmes of music and narration. Their daring and sensitive programmes are truly varied, from light-hearted festive offerings to sequences on the First World War, as well as programmes celebrating the themes of Light and folk music and many more. The group’s repertoire ranges from European polyphony and Gregorian chant through to folk + traditional music and everything in between. Their recent disc of Mediaeval Carols was described as “truly immersive – one to listen to again and again” by Robert Hugill. They have a particular interest in contemporary music, having commissioned and premiered pieces from the likes of Judith Bingham, Sally Beamish, Howard Skempton and Chery Frances Hoad, amongst others.

Opus Anglicanum’s recent appearances have included concerts at the Thaxted Festival; Wells Cathedral (where they perform an annual sell-out concert of Mediaeval Carols); Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton; Kings Place, London; The Three Choirs Festival; The Two Moors Festival; Chipping Campden Music Festival; Dorchester Arts Festival; SJE Arts, Oxford; and St Martin’s-in-the-Field Spring/Summer Festival, as well as broadcasting on BBC Radio 3. The group has recently collaborated with celebrated jazz pianist Jason Rebello to develop an exciting new improvisation project, with a disc, Adorna released in January 2022 on the Ulysees Arts label.

Opus Anglicanum Trust

Charity No.1083865

Patron - Dame Emma Kirkby

Trustees:
Stephen Tilton, chairman;
Paul Aylieff, Joanna Godfree, Dr Frances Hogwood, Jenny Slater, Ghislaine Reece-Trapp

Tweets by OpusAnglicanum

“Opus Anglicanum is a quintet of first-rate unaccompanied male singers with narrator.”

— Reviews Gate

Adorna

Jazz star Jason Rebello joins classical a cappella experts Opus Anglicanum in a striking new collaboration entitled 'Adorna'. Sublime and ancient Gregorian chant for the midwinter feast of Candlemas comes to new life when the spontaneous improvised piano of Jason Rebello joins the mix.

£15.00

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Use code MULTIBUY to save £5 when purchasing TWO Adorna CDs (or on any order over £30)

David de Winter, John Bowen, Roland Robertson and Jason Rebello on BBC Radio 3’s IN TUNE

Think Bill Evans, Duruflé, Herbie Hancock and Arvo Pärt, meeting around a grand piano in the centre of a great Cathedral, against the meditative backdrop of the austere modal chant.

The five unaccompanied voices of Opus Anglicanum (OA) have two decades of concert experience blending readings with a huge repertoire from chant, mediaeval and renaissance vocal polyphony to folksong and contemporary commissions.

This live improvised piano collaboration with Jason was born out of an educational project where Jason worked with OA director and teacher Roland Robertson. 'Adorna' the full album was released on January 28 2022, with a live London performance by Opus Anglicanum with Jason Rebello at St Martin in the Fields on February 3.

“Every monastery is going to want a pianist now!”

— Sean Rafferty, BBC Radio 3

Recordings

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Adorna

£15.00

Jazz star Jason Rebello joins classical a cappella experts Opus Anglicanum in a striking new collaboration entitled 'Adorna'. Sublime and ancient Gregorian chant for the midwinter feast of Candlemas comes to new life when the spontaneous improvised piano of Jason Rebello joins the mix.

Use code MULTIBUY to save £5 when purchasing TWO Adorna CDs (or on any order over £30)

Mediaeval Carols III Double CD

£15.00

Join Opus Anglicanum on a Christmas journey 800 years back in time, visiting spellbinding music and words from our mediaeval past. Masterworks include Perotin’s spell-binding solo Beata viscera, and Obrecht’s dazzling Factor orbis. Our readings, performed by Zeb Soanes, invite the listener to encounter great mediaeval spiritual thinkers, poets and artists, spanning a thousand years to illuminate the surrounding music.

Presented on two CDs, one containing both music and readings and the other, music only.

Use code MULTIBUY to save £5 when purchasing TWO Mediaeval Carols CDs (or on any order over £30)

Figgy Pudding CD

£10.00

Christmas jollity, sacred and secular, with carols and songs from the past 800 years – including Vaughan Williams and Orlando Gibbons – and words by Samuel Pepys, Thomas Hardy, Stanley Holloway, and Laurie Lee. An enduring OA favourite programme.

An English Music CD

£10.00

An English Music was conceived for a concert in King’s Place, London in 2016. Although it begins and ends with Purcell and Byrd, the focus is to present 6 works from among the 30+ new commissions made by Opus Anglicanum between 2000 and 2017. Zeb Soanes reads from Shakespeare, Siegfried Sassoon and John Milton, and the commissions include Einstein (Dobrinka Tabakova, 2013), Sing friends, sing to the honour of the Lord (Diana Burrell, 2014), Put Out Into the Deep (David Bednall, 2008), Three Miniatures of Fortunatus (Howard Skempton, 2016), Awakening (Gordon Crosse, 2010) and Fantasia on English Children’s Songs (Owain Park, 2013).

The Great and Wide Sea CD

£10.00

A haunting programme of original commissions from two of the UK’s leading female composers: a complete reading by Zeb Soanes of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic Rime of the Ancient Mariner with music by Lynne Plowman, and Sally Beamish’s powerful Sea Psalm, setting an account from the only surviving officer of the destroyer HMS Duchess, which was sunk on 12 December 1939.

In Parenthesis CD

£10.00

Marking the centenary of WW1, David Jones’ In Parenthesis is based on the artist's experience as a young volunteer soldier in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. Zeb Soanes tells the harrowing story of the Battle of Mametz Wood (July 1916) in Jones’ own words, and the singers of Opus Anglicanum perform soldiers' songs as well as Schubert and Palestrina. The CD also has two powerful works commissioned by Opus Anglicanum, from Cheryl Frances Hoad (In the Crypt of the Wood) and Owain Park (Sequence: In Parenthesis).

The Seeds of Love

£10.00

One of OA's most popular and poignant programmes, telling the remarkable story of the English 'folksong hunters' of the early 20th century. Opus Anglicanum bring these wonderful tunes to life in all their original beauty, as well as in a rich variety of arrangements by Vaughan Williams, Cecil Sharp and Percy Grainger.

The House CD

£10.00

A fascinating entertainment in which an imaginary English country manor house is observed through a thousand years of English history. From its first description as an Anglo-Saxon establishment in the Domesday Book through changing times up to the 1950s, with poetry, prose, laughter and tears.

Bede CD

£10.00

Exactly what the 8th century Benedictine monk Bede would have sung and heard is unknowable as musical notation was not developed until after his death. Opus Anglicanum's tribute to Bede juxtaposes readings from John Touhey of Bede’s Life of Cuthbert with early Gregorian and Anglo-Saxon Chant and 10th century works for St Cuthbert. Included is a spellbinding OA commission by Judith Bingham, Necklace of Light, based on Bede’s best-known work The Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

Love Song CD

£10.00

A fun-filled and passionate entertainment depicting successively the emotions of falling in love, marriage, false and farcical lovers, and partings. Readings and music sublime and ridiculous, from the 12th century up to 2012.

The Journey CD

£10.00

This sequence of words and music explores the concept of journeys as part of life itself, and pilgrimage as a consecrated journey found in all faiths. Opus Anglicanum commissioned Judith Bingham’s Uppon First Sight of New England, setting an ecstatic poem by Thomas Tillam, a 17th century Baptist minister seeing America for the first time. Readings by John Touhey range from John Bunyan to Auschwitz survivor Agi Ruben, with music from Palestrina and Tallis to Vaughan Williams.

sold out

Mediaeval Carols II CD

£7.50 £10.00

Opus Anglicanum’s second album of beautiful mediaeval carols, framed by resonant readings from the great divines of the period.

sold out

Mediaeval Carols CD

£7.50 £10.00

“Not many groups would do so much for new music.”

— Gordon Crosse, Composer

Events

“ If you want to escape the usual seasonal fare completely, you could not do better than to find in your stocking Mediaeval Carols. Opus Anglicanum - five superb male singers and a reader - presents a feast of words and music of the very highest quality.”

— RSCM Magazine

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