Psallentes & The Spirit of Gambo

In December 1988, Bill Cadman, friend and employee of composer Gavin Bryars, died in the horrifying airplane explosion over the town of Lockerbie. To honour his memory, Bryars wrote the Cadman Requiem.

Bryars is one of a generation of European composers who, starting in the 1970s, added to the new genre of minimalism which had come over from America. An essential aspect of this was linking to Europe’s own tradition.

In this concert as well, Bryars’ requiem will be literally placed between a few of its older European relatives: the sober art of Gregorian chant, the solid 13th-century organum style of Perotin, and the sombre reticence of 17th-century English consort music. Experience the ritual mood in the silence of the Park Abbey in the run-up to All Souls’ Weekend.