Best of 2010
18th January 2011
The premiere of British composer Tarik O’Regan’s both plaintive and rousing work formed the centrepiece of the John Armitage Memorial (JAM) trust’s tenth anniversary concert in March – the organisation (which commissions works for choir, brass and organ) once again proving its winning instinct as the piece was shortlisted for this year’s British Composer Awards. In ‘The Night’s Untruth’ O’Regan explores the theme of sleep as a metaphor, with death, love, fear, ecstasy, isolation, dreaming and rest all providing textual ‘variations on the theme’, drawing on poems across the centuries by Keats, Shakespeare, Samuel Daniel and Hart Crane. The accomplished performance was given by regular JAM collaborators: the BBC Singers directed by Nicholas Cleobury, Onyx Brass and the organist Stephen Disley.
