Tallis Scholars perform at BL

There was a fantastic performance by the Tallis Scholars yesterday in the BL, in celebration of the Sacred exhibition and also Ascension Day, a key date in the Christian calendar. It was a free event and within minutes hundreds of people had gathered, coming out of the reading rooms and exhibition galleries to listen to them performing beautiful extracts from Monteverdi: Messa in illo tempore and Gombert: In illo tempore. It also somehow seemed an appropriate, informal tribute to Sir Colin St John Wilson, the architect of the British Library, who sadly passed away earlier this week. (There's a formal tribute to him on the main BL site).
Listen to a short clip from the performance

Comments

[Neil]

That was a great concert, in an ideal cathedral-like space. A pity that the architect couldn't be there to hear it.

[Dietmar Witz]

I particularly enjoyed this concert. It was an all too welcome distraction from my work in the Reading Room! I wonder, if it may be possible to put more musical extracts on the Sacred website to accompany, and complement the texts?

I would like to hear extracts of for example Sufi devotional music with the Qur'ans or the Khamsa of Nizami, Jewish sephardic rite, etc etc.

[Rob Ainsley, BL website]

Thanks for that, Dietmar. We'll be investigating the possibility of music to complement some of the sacred texts soon. Usually there is a problem with rights, but I'll see what we can do.