The Tallis Scholars perform ‘Sainte-Chapelle’ to a sold out audience at Cheltenham Music Festival
The Tallis Scholars will perform Eric’s ‘Sainte-Chapelle’ to a sold out audience in Tewkesbury Cathedral as part of the world-renowned Cheltenham Music Festival.
The Tallis Scholars are one of the most globally successful and enduring exponents of a capella choral music. They first performed ‘Sainte-Chapelle’, exclusively commissioned for the group by Peter Phillips, at St. Paul’s Cathedral in March 2013 as part of their 40th anniversary concert. They now bring the piece to Cheltenham Music Festival to be performed as part of their ‘best of…’ programme, as selected by their director Peter Phillips.
The piece is inspired by the stained glass windows of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris and the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, with a text based on the Sanctus written by Charles Anthony Silvestri. It tells the story of a girl who enters Sainte-Chapelle, ‘kneels, and hears angels in the stained glass singing softly to her “Sanctus, Sanctus”’.
Eric Whitacre explained: “As the angels were singing, this light was coming through the stained glass and refracting so that it was the sound of the Renaissance, the sound of the Tallis Scholars, being refracted a little, through me.”