Live from 13:00 to 14:00

The Open University Choir's spring 2024 concert will comprise Karl Jenkins’s Requiem and the performance is marking the composer’s 80th birthday. Renowned Welsh composer Sir Karl Jenkins is best known for his global ‘cross-genre’ phenomenon Adiemus and his ever-popular The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace. The Choir will be accompanied by the Cantoribus Ensemble and conducted by Dennis Pim.

The Requiem was premiered in 2005 at Southwark Cathedral and performed by massed choirs accompanied by the West Kazakhstan Philharmonic Orchestra, Adiemus percussion and brass and conducted by the composer.

The normal Latin texts from the Requiem Mass are set but as with many of Jenkins’s other choral works, the Requiem includes material from other cultures, in this case a set of five Japanese haiku ‘death’ poems.

This tuneful and accessible work is solemn, exciting and moving in equal measure and is now one of Jenkins’s more popular choral works.

Admission free and open to all