Emma will return to her home town, Nottingham, to sing during the BBC’s Christmas Carol Service on Thursday 14th December. It will be broadcast on Christmas Eve at 16:00 UK time and on Christmas Day at 13:00. It is possible to listen online via this link.
10th December 2017 is Worldwide Candle-Lighting Day, a day to remember children who passed away. Across the globe, candles are lit at 19:00 local time creating a wave of light. In Leiden, the Netherlands, the city council is hosting the Candle Lighting in the Town Hall. Emma will sing two songs in collaboration with the famous Dutch psychologist Else Marie van den Erenbeemt.
18:30, Stadhuis, Leiden. Free entry.
Tigger tries to prevent Emma from studying Harrie Janssen’s “A Poem Against War.”
On 9th December, Emma will sing “A Poem Against War” by Harrie Janssen (1960-) during the HRFSTWND concert series with Het Fanfare Collectif. “A Poem Against War” is a beautiful piece for mezzo and windband. The poem, by New York poet Karen Karpowich, is the reflections of a person seeing a war memorial and realising the futility of war and the tragedy that the soldiers are forgotten.
The concert is in the Schaffelaartheater in Barneveld, the Netherlands, beginning at 20:00. Tickets are available here, and there is more information (in Dutch) here.
Emma Brown, Henk Gijzen, and Hans Brons in concert in 2015.
On 25th November, Emma will join soprano Marjon Strijk and bass Hans Brons to sing a programme of Buxtehude, together with a baroque ensemble under conductor Henk Gijzen. The ensemble will perform two Mozart sonatas.
16:00, Hooglandse Kerk, Leiden, the Netherlands. Free entrance, with a collection for the church.
Singing in the Menin Gate, 11th November 2016.
This year, Emma will join the West Yorkshire Police Band and other bands to sing in remembrance ceremonies across Flanders, Belgium. She will sing during the Canadian ceremonies in Passchendaele, the French ceremony at Messines Ridge, the ceremony for New Zealand Soldier in Messines Square and at the New Zealand Memorial in Messines, at Black Watch Corner for Scottish remembrance, and at the afternoon ceremony in Tyne Cot in the presence of the ambassadors of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In the evening, she will sing in the Menin Gate during the Last Post Ceremony.
This year marks the centenary of the battle of Passchendaele, a battle whose death toll exceeded half a million. On 10th November, the eve of the armistice ninety-nine years ago, a memorial service will be held in the town of Passchendaele followed by a concert. Emma will sing with the Canadian Army Band Musique Royal 22ème Régiment, together with folksinger Alan Brydon, The Swigshift, Harmonie St. Cecelia Beselare, and Field Marshal Haig’s Own Pipes & Drums, in the presence of the Canadian Ambassador to Belgium Olivier Nicoloff, the Belgian Minister of Defense, and other representatives.
Tickets are available via the following e-mail address: gps1917vzw@gmail.com, and can be purchased in the shop of the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917
Karl Jenkins “The Armed Man”
Karl Jenkins’ “The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace” was commissioned by the Royal Armouries Museum and first performed in 2000. Based around the movements of the Mass, it journeys from militarism and a descent into war, through the horrors of war, and ends with a prayer for peace. The additional texts include the Islamic Call to Prayer, sections of the Bible and the Mahabharata, and citations from Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Hiroshima survivor Sankichi Toge. Emma’s solo “Now the Guns have Stopped” was written by Guy Wilson, master of the museum, and concerns the guilt experienced by surviving soldiers of World War One.
The French secular song, “L’Homme Armé” (the armed man) was cited in several Masses from the mid-fifteenth century until the eighteenth century. Karl Jenkins quotes the song in the opening and closing movements of his work. Other composers who used this theme include Dufay, Ockegem, Obrecht, Morales, Palestrina, Carissimi, and, more recently, Peter Maxwell Davies.
On a personal note, Emma recently visited Corporal John Sleep, a paratrooper from the Second World War, who fought during the D-Day landings on Sword Beach and in the Netherlands. He mentioned how his main goal was not so much defeating the enemy but ending the war. In other words, he was fighting for peace. With this in mind, the subtitle “A Mass for Peace” perhaps reflects the goals of many serving soldiers.
The Mass is dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo crisis. This is close to Emma’s heart since her partner worked in the peace operation after the war.
The concert is on Sunday, 5th November at 15:00 in the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The first half of the programme is the première of a work commissioned by the Hoofdstadkoor of Amsterdam to mark their sixty-fifth anniversary. The Iraqi composers Hamid Al Badri and Raad Khalaf, father and son, have written a powerful work based on songs of love and peace called “The Golden Bird.” It has lush symphonic textures and uses authentic Iraqi and Syrian instruments. The solos are sung by Baidar Al Basri, the daughter and sister of the composers.
In the second half of the concert, Emma will join the Hoofdstadkoor of Amsterdam as a soloist together with Taiwanese soprano Kayi Min and Turkish baritone Bora Balci, with the Promenade Orkest and conductor Martin van der Brugge for “The Armed Man.” Tickets are available here.