conductor George Parris on the Carice Singers’ An Ode to Our Planet collaborating with cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, celebrating Arvo Pärt & their debut at hcmf

George Parris & the Carice Singers (Photograph: Lidia Crisafulli)

Conductor George Parris and the Carice Singers have been exploring Arvo Pärt‘s music alongside that of different Estonian composers, most lately (8 November) at St Giles Cripplegate the place they carried out music by Arvo Pärt, Evelin Seppar and Galina Grigorjeva [see the review on TheArtsDesk website]. The choir was based in 2011 by George Parris and named for Elgar’s daughter. Their repertoire spreads broadly, and while the music of Nordic area and the Baltic looms giant, George enjoys exploring additional.

On 13 December 2025, they are going to be becoming a member of cellist Nicolas Altstaedt at Kings Place for An Ode to Our Planet as a part of the Earth Unwrapped season. The live performance options Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites, two new items for cello and choir by French-British composer Josephine Stephenson, and Spanish composer Raquel García-Tomás, and two unaccompanied works by Ben Nobuto and Dobrinka Tabakova.

After the pandemic, George needed the group to change into extra collaborative so the thought to carry out with cellist Nicolas Altstaedt was most welcome. The thought for the live performance initially got here from Helen Wallace, the earlier creative director at King’s Place, who was herself a cellist. The live performance options new music for choir and cello, which is one thing they had been trying to do. Josephine Stephenson’s work, Fireplace, river, backyard, which has been commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society, can be a world premiere. Raquel Garcia-Tomas’s work, Vols brisés , which has been commissioned by Palau de la Musica Catalana and Kings Place, would be the UK premiere. Vols brisés was premiered in Could this yr by Nicolas Altstaedt with Cor de Cambra del Palau and Júlia Sesé on the Palau de la Música in Barcelona.

George Parris and the Carice Singers on the Cheltenham Music Pageant, 2021

Ben Nobuto’s work Sol, for eight unaccompanied solo voices and written in 2022 for the Nationwide Youth Choir Fellowship, is a playful ode to the solar and the power that sustains life, whereas Dobrinka Tabakova’s Flip our Captivity, O Lord, which was written for The Sixteen, gives a serene plea for renewal and hope.

In terms of modern music, George loves working with composers who push boundaries and problem themselves, who’re up for experimentation and play. He likes composers to be free and unpredictable. However the choir’s work in instructional schemes informs the selection of composer too. For the final 4 years, George and the Carice Singers have been concerned within the composers academy on the Cheltenham Music Pageant. They workshop the composers’ items, which supplies them a chance to construct relationships with composers and go on to fee works.

George additionally seems for composers who will match alongside the choir’s different tasks. For example, they’ve commissioned Alex Groves for a chunk which is able to function alongside the choir’s Michael Tippett mission. Groves’ work is impressed by the sculptor Barbara Hepworth which gives a high quality hyperlink to Tippett. In 2026 George and the choir will document Tippett’s unaccompanied choral music for Signum Data, for launch in November 2026. Then in 2027 they are going to be touring the programme alongside Alex Groves’ new piece.

There’s a couple of CD’s price of Tippett’s unaccompanied choral music and George describes all of the items as gems. He thinks that it’s fantastic to see a revival of Tippett’s orchestral and operatic output, however he doesn’t wish to see the choral music left behind. George describes Tippett’s alternative of texts as incredible and the Tippett mission has been one which George has lengthy desired to do.

In terms of assembling programmes, George tends to really feel them in an instinctive method, in search of tales within the texts or in biographical particulars. This helps him discover a poweful solution to current music that on the web page may look as if it doesn’t match collectively. He likes to consider the viewers taking a psychological journey by way of the live performance, while programmes want all kinds of various sounds and stimuluses in them. When within the starting stage he lets his creativeness run, creating completely different variations of a programme in order that he can see what works for him.

For his or her Arvo Pärt season this autumn, George programmed as a lot of Pärt’s music as doable from his necessary pre-tintinabuli work, Sarah was Ninety Years Previous, to certainly one of his most up-to-date, O Holy Father Nicholas. However the thought of together with works by different Estonian composers alongside that of Pärt was to point out completely different voices in Estonian music. Although George admits that there was a component of curiosity too, to search out out what this music was like.

One of many motive’s for the choir’s deal with music from Scandinavia and the Baltic is that George studied and lived in Finland for 4 years (from the ages of 24 to twenty-eight). He describes this as a really impressionable time for him, with numerous musical occasions in Scandinavia and the Baltic being very accessible. He discovered Baltic music-making to be transfixing, and in live shows he’s intentionally making an attempt to recreate that magic and dedication in modern music. Along with his choir, George has a imaginative and prescient of placing choral music on the centre of latest tradition, seeing how wealthy it’s and the way individuals profit.

George Parris and the Carice Singers

On 22 November 2025, George and the Carice Singers made their debut at the Huddersfield Up to date Music Pageant with Baltic Sounds, giving the UK premieres of music by Lithuanian composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, and Finnish composers Perttu Haapanen, Lotta Wennäkoski and Joel Järventausta, together with Arvo Pärt. George describes the Pageant as an incredible place to current his music. The programme was curated with the competition’s creative director, Graham Mckenzie. Programming Arvo Pärt’s experimental, early Sarah was Ninety Years Previous and his main work, The Beatitudes is a method of celebrating his ninetieth birthday. Žibuoklė Martinaitytė started composing Aletheia (2022), simply as Russian troops had crossed into Ukraine, while Perttu Haapanen’s Readymade Alice and Joel Järventausta’ There’ll come gentle rain had been really useful to Graham Mckenzie by George and he finds them inspiring and imaginative. Finishing the programme was Valossa by Lotta Wennäkoski, one of the crucial prolific Finnish composers. George describes the programme as a showcase for music the choir loves, by composers whom George is aware of personnally.