Live from London - Spring

Dame Emma Kirkby & Friends - Abiding Love

“It’s a great honour to be invited into VOCES8’s LIVE from London Festival, which has given such joy and uplift over the last six months; when, in future more calm and normal times, we look back at how we began this extraordinary decade, those streamed concerts will stand out as beacons for many of us.

How to make a one-hour musical celebration of Mothering Sunday? What relation does our Sunday in Lent have to America’s Mother’s Day in May? Instinctively I wanted to throw my musical net wider; I looked a bit into the history, and found a rather amazing thing; that we owe the rescue and revival of our Mothering Sunday, at just one remove, to America; and that that process, around the turn of the last century, allowed for broader and deeper meanings of the word “mother”.

I am delighted that joining me for a journey through many centuries are six wonderful colleagues: Toby Carr (theorbo), Helen Charlston (mezzo), Patricia Hammond (mezzo), Christopher Glynn (piano), Aileen Henry (baroque harp) and Matt Redman (multi-instrumentalist); and among composers featured will be Hildegarde of Bingen, Monteverdi, Merula, Purcell, Clemence de Grandval, Copland, and Britten.” – Emma Kirkby