Remembrance Concert 2022

This year we remember and celebrate Ralph Vaughan Williams’ enormous contribution to church music on the 150th anniversary of his death.

The programme will open with his moving setting of words by George Herbert in the Five Mystical Songs. Herbert Howells was inspired by Vaughan Williams’s music and Howells’ emotional and powerful unaccompanied Requiem, written tragically after his son, Michael, died aged 9, will be sung alongside his intense and beautiful anthem, ‘Take him Earth for cherishing’ (written on the death of President Kennedy in 1963). As the tragedy of war continues in Ukraine, John Rutter’s evocative setting of A Prayer for Ukraine and two other contemporary works Lux Aeterna and Lord, you have been my dwelling place (by our Director of Music, Huw Williams) renew our prayers for peace and reconciliation.

Featuring the Abbey Choirs of Boys, Girls, Lay Clerks and the Chamber Choir.