Meet Our Composers (2)

Fenham Ensemble is extremely privileged to have been able to collaborate with three local composers for our next concert - The Sun Never Says: Music for Cello and Voice - on Saturday 23rd March 2024 at St James' and St Basil's Church in Fenham with RNS cellist, Gabriel Waite.

Eleanor Cully Boehringer, Kerrin Tatman and Len Young are all composers currently living and working in the North East of England. Eleanor and Kerrin both sing with the choir and we have been able to work closely with all three in preparing their pieces for the concert.

Let's meet them. Next up is Kerrin ...

Kerrin Tatman

Kerrin joined Fenham Ensemble earlier this year as a valuable addition to our Tenor section but their undoubted talent for composition has given us a fantastic opportunity to showcase their work whilst benefiting from collaborating directly with the composer to achieve the performance envisaged by them.

Kerrin is a genre-bending composer who writes music spanning classical, folk, musical theatre and everything in between, "existing on a plain of its own" (NARC Magazine). After winning the National Centre for Early Music's Young Composer's Competition in 2008, Kerrin has since written for stage, screen and concert hall, and enjoys telling expansive and cinematic stories with long time collaborator lyricist Rosie Bristow. Kerrin has recently completed a year long artist residency at The Glasshouse: International Centre for Music (previously Sage Gateshead) to write and present Requiem for a Fading World for choir, orchestra and solo singers. Other portfolio commissions include a Fantasy for Viola & Orchestra premiered by the Hull Philharmonic with BBC New Generation Artist and Borletti-Buitoni Trust fellow solo viola player Timothy Ridout, and arranging Joe Hisaishi's score for the world's first stage production of Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke.

In 'The Sun Never Says' concert on 23rd March, we will be performing Kerrin's moving 'Stabat Mater', scored for SSATB. Stabat Mater (the mother was standing) is a 13th century Christian hymn to the Virgin Mary that portrays her suffering as mother during the crucifixion of her son Jesus.

"I'm thrilled that Stabat Mater is being performed again as it hasn't been sung for sixteen years!" says Kerrin. "I wrote it when I was 18 and it ended up winning the National Centre for Early Music Young Composer's Competition. The piece was workshopped at the NCEM in York by the Ebor Singers and was recorded in concert there. It was then performed by The Tallis Scholars in Beverley Minster as part of the Early Music Festival, which was totally surreal! It was my first proper exploration into composition in a public forum and it gave me the confidence to keep pursuing writing music to the present day.

I'm really grateful to Fenham Ensemble's Director, Simon Davies-Fidler, for giving me the opportunity to have it performed again in this concert alongside such a beautiful and varied programme of pieces.

http://www.kerrintatman.co.uk

'The Sun Never Says: Music for Cello and Voice' is on Saturday 23rd March 2024 at St James' and St Basil's church, Fenham, Newcastle NE4 9EJ starting at 7.30pm.

Tickets available from: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/sdfchoralevents/1133775

Programme:

Prelude from Cello Suite No.1 in G Major - J S Bach

O Magnum Mysterium (Serenity) - Ola Gjeilo

Snowdrop - Eleanor Cully Boehringer

Pie Jesu from Requiem in D minor - Gabriel Fauré

Romance - Gabriel Fauré

Agnus Dei II from Missa Brevis - Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

Goin' Home - Paul Langford after Antonín Dvorák

The Oak - Becky McGlade

Tarantella - Len Young

Stabat Mater - Kerrin Tatman