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Over the February half-term break, Dartfordians Liam Bannister and I had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform alongside English bass opera singer Sir John Tomlinson in a collaboration project that joined Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance’s Junior Department with the Brighton Youth Orchestra on a national music tour performing a world première of Peter Copley’s Salamanca 1936.
The culmination of a collaboration project, Brighton Youth Orchestra alongside Junior Trinity’s Four Part Choir performed G.F. Handel’s Zadok the Priest, Sir John Taverner’s Ekstasis, and the first performance of Peter Copley’s Salamanca 1936 – a piece written for Sir John Tomlinson.
The project started off with an inspiring choral masterclass led by Sir John Tomlinson and Charles MacDougall, featuring performances from vocal undergraduate students from Trinity Laban. John Tomlinson taught us about the importance of correct breathing in singing and the role of the diaphragm in producing excellent choral singing ahead of our concert. The Brighton Youth Orchestra and Junior Trinity’s Four Part Choir later joined forces in full-day rehearsals culminating in evening performances at Old Royal Naval College Chapel in Greenwich and St Bartholomew’s Church in Brighton.
“Death to the intellectuals”
The concert highlight, Salamanca 1936, focusses on an incident during the Spanish Civil War, when Rector of the University of Salamanca Miguel de Unamuno stood up against the fascist General Millán Astray with the oratorio delivered by Sir John Tomlinson. In a series of extended arioso passages, Unamuno’s internal struggle is passionately portrayed, with the chorus presenting the internal civil strife within the people. In the final part, Unamuno’s internal conflict is emotionally depicted through his poem La Nevada es silenciosa, set in English for chorus.
Conflicts between intellectuals and dictators – seen historically in other events such as Cambodia’s ‘Khmer Rouge’ Regime are presented in his oratorio, and at a time of wavering political climates, the piece holds contemporary relevance while also being a musically noteworthy. The première of such a beautiful yet thematically harsh piece was performed flawlessly under the direction of Andrew Sherwood.
Junior Trinity Four Part Choir alto singer Jess Yuen told DGSChapter: “Working with such inspirational musicians was a truly amazing experience – I have never learnt so much in 2 days, whether it was about singing or Spanish history!”
Image by © Liam Bannister