The Daily Telegraph praises ‘O Guiding Night’

Monday, 20 June 2011

On June 14 in the intimate neighbourhood setting of St James’s Church, Spanish Place, The Sixteen performed a concert of new Genesis Foundation commissions from notable British composers of the younger generation: Ruth Byrchmore, Tarik O’Regan and Roderick Williams.

The inspiration for these commissions were the poems of the Spanish mystics St Teresa of Ávila and St John of the Cross, both figures of great intellectual rigour and spiritual power. These commissions were performed alongside music by Spain’s greatest Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria, marking the 400th anniversary of his death (1548-1611).

Christopher Howse, columist for The Daily Telegraph, was in attendance and has since written the lovely article below praising John Stuzinski and the Genesis Foundation. He writes:
The work of these young composers (now on CD on the Coro label) was being performed publicly thanks to the Genesis Foundation, a charity started in 2001 by John Studzinski. So I feel gratitude to him as well as to my optimistic hostess.

A link to the article in its entirety is below:

Music for a leap in the dark

By Christopher Howse

Sacred mysteries: Christopher Howse is pleasantly surprised to hear new music by young composers that seems to connect with the Spanish mystics

When a kind friend told me that the concert to which she was taking me last Tuesday was of music “inspired by the Spanish mystics”, my heart did not sing. Can music be inspired by the inexpressible interior lives of St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Ávila?

For the rest of this article, please go to the The Daily Telegraph‘s website.