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Sofia Gubaidulina  Serenade and Toccata
David Fennessy  Rosewood
J S Bach  Suite in E minor BWV 996
Georges Lentz  Ingwe

As an uncompromising new classical force, Sean Shibe is riffing on the chaos and calamity of our times to push his instrument into pioneering new shapes.

Over the years, he has been influenced by the contemporary classical repertoire of Europe alongside the avant-garde jazz of his dad’s record collection – think Sun Ra, John Coltrane and socialist mining songs from Scotland and the North East – growing up on a worldly-wise diet of sound that defies pigeonholing.

Coupled with his astute reactions to world power politics and the everyday violence that now permeates our social narratives, he’s harnessing these stimuli to pour fresh thinking onto his music.

‘Places of Worship refracts different modes of contemporary spirituality through the prism of Bach. David Fennessy’s Rosewood is inspired by the Italian Chapel in Orkney, built by Italian prisoners of war during WW2; Sofia Gubaidulina’s work is underpinned by fierce faith, and her two works for solo guitar conjure delicate miracle; and Ingwe is, in the composer’s own words, ‘a tormented, almost demonic meditation about God’s silence and the impossibility of praying, a desperate shout to the heavens, a vision of blackness. There is no night without day. No darkness without light. No silence without sound. Without deafening noise.’ – Sean Shibe*

 

*Please note: This programme replaces the previously advertised ‘Melancholia’ programme, which Sean has since revised. The Gubaidulina and Fennessy works replace the Dowland Selection of Fantasies and Galliards.

Photo credit: Kaupo Kikkas

Part of the RNCM Original Voices series.

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