John Tavener: Happenings

20th August 2007

"I am delighted to continue my contract with Chester Music and my valued relationships with colleagues and friends within the company," noted John Tavener on the recent renewal of his long term exclusive relationship with Chester Music. Managing Director James Rushton shared, "It is very rewarding to have signed this exceptionally long term extension to Sir John's career-long relationship with Chester Music. It is a privilege to be the publisher of all of [his] output and greatly encouraging to be able to look ahead with certainty to the many new and original projects planned for the next several years." Tavener added, "Deo Volens, I will produce yet more music!"

And Tavener produces. On 26 September, Nicola Benedetti joins Andrew Litton and the London Philharmonic for the world premiere of the violin concerto Lalishri at London's Royal Festival Hall. A co-commission of the London Philharmonic and the Southbank Centre, Lalishri is inspired by the 14th-century Hindu saint and poet Lalla Yogishwari. "Her poetry, with its combination of intensity and simplicity made me think of the 'innocent intensity' of Benedetti's playing," Tavener explained. "Indeed the solo violin represents the song of Lalla. When Lalla discovered 'atma' or the true 'self' (which is none other than God inside her) she danced naked throughout Kashmir. This spiritual nakedness manifests itself in bodily nakedness. The music is in five sections moving through dance, ecstatic trance to a musical expression of bliss…" Benedetti has recorded the work for Deutsche Grammophon; the CD release coincides with the premiere.

Tavener's mass Sollemnitas in Conceptione Immaculate Beatae Maria Virginis will premier 8 December in Zurich, Switzerland. Sollemnitas is a co-commission from the Festival Religio Musica Nova in Zurich and Saint Thomas Church in New York City. The mass will have its first US hearing on 7 March 2008 in the historic Saint Thomas Church.