Tenebrae and Britten Sinfonia: Seven Last Words
Saturday 28 March 2026
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Barber’s Adagio and Allegri’s Miserere prepare the way for James MacMillan’s great Passion meditation, in this emotionally-charged evening from Nigel Short and Tenebrae.
For Sir James MacMillan, “beauty is at the heart of our Christian faith”, and few living composers communicate with such emotional directness – taking ancient texts and charging them with a wholly original intensity, wonder and imaginative fire. Composed in 1994, his Seven Last Words have already become a classic. Now, on the eve of Holy Week, they form a passionate climax to an superbly-imagined sequence of musical meditations from Nigel Short, the Britten Sinfonia and Tenebrae – the virtuoso British chamber choir whose singing was described by one critic as “a kind of musical miracle”.
Allegri Miserere
Barber Adagio for Strings
Poulenc Quatre Motets pour un temps de pénitence
MacMillan The Seven Last Words from the Cross
Tenebrae
Britten Sinfonia
Nigel Short conductor
Dates, Times & Book
| Sat 28 Mar | 7:30 PM | £40/£30/£25/£16/£10/£55 | Book |
Share this event
Other things to do
Manchester Collective: Sky with the Four Suns
A vision of the sky in the depths of the earth: mystery, ecstasy and stunning music-making as the Manchester Collective takes over the crypt at St Martin-in-the-Fields.
Monteverdi Choir & English Baroque Soloists: Bach - St John Passion
“Ah, my soul where will you go at last? Where shall I find relief?”. Peter Whelan and the Monteverdi Choir perform Bach’s St John Passion.
The Sixteen: Mother of Mercy - Music for Lent from a Golden Age of Portuguese Music
Lotti’s Crucifixus is just the start of it, as Harry Christophers and The Sixteen celebrate Lent in the most sumptuous way possible – with the music of baroque Portugal.
The Gesualdo Six: Pärt Passio
Arvo Pärt’s epic re-telling of the Passion According to St John, sung by Gesualdo Six in the atmospheric surroundings of St Martin-in-the-Fields.
