Cantata Dramatica is a not-for-profit organisation (charity registration number 1158027) whose objective is to commission and promote new music.
We work with a mix of professional and amateur performers at many different levels and we aim to provide a rewarding creative experience for all.
LATEST NEWS
In 2016, following an AHRC funded project with Durham University History Department called 'Singing the Past to Life', Cantata Dramatica commissioned Solfa Carlile to write a cantata on the Life of St Cuthbert based on a script by Nick Pitts-Tucker and Dr. Charlie Rozier .
In 2016 Cantata Dramatica commissioned Solfa Carlile to compose choral settings of three highly atmospheric Greek poems dating from the fourth to the sixth century AD. The poems were translated by Nick Pitts-Tucker who chose to interleave them with texts from early Greek hymns, adding an additional challenge to composer and singers alike.
Nick Pitts-Tucker's libretto deals with the final three tales from the 'Thousand and One Nights', and uses the device of stories within a story.
Composer, Danyal Dhondy has created an evocative sound world for the opera while always allowing the text to shine through.
The story of Beowulf is the Anglo Saxon version of the heroic deeds of a Swedish warrior who made his name in Denmark, fighting awesome trolls, and then, in old and distinguished age, rolling out for one last fight with a fire breathing Dragon.
Louis Mander's richly scored chamber opera is fast-paced and full of menace as we follow Beowulf's heroic deeds to the bitter end.
In 2014 Cantata Dramatica commissioned Nick and Tony Bicât to write Red Dragon, White Dragon, the story behind the legend of King Arthur.
The 90 minute telling of the triumph and subsequent collapse of the Arthurian fight back against the Saxon invaders of Britain is inspired by Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. Nick and Tony’s treatment is fast-moving and highly entertaining with music is in a folk/rock style and a production designed to be visually exciting.
The Cantata Eliensis tells the story of the founding and building of the great cathedral at Ely over a period of four centuries or more.
The libretto, by Nick Pitts-Tucker, is derived from the Liber Eliensis, a contemporary account written by the monks at Ely Abbey no later than 1172 AD.
The three acts of the Cantata Eliensis were commissioned from three different composers – Anna Krause, Toby Young and Louis Mander.
Missa Aedes Christi, commissioned in 2012, is the result of an artistic collaboration between the composer Francis Grier, Stephen Darlington, Director of Music at Christ Church Cathedral since 1985, and Ross McKim, Director of the Cathedral Dance Research Project and Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance.
Perpetua, with music by Nick Bicât and libretto by Nick Pitts-Tucker was Cantata Dramatica's first commission. It tells the moving story of a young widow and mother living in Carthage (now Tunisia) in 203 AD; an exceptional witness to a spirit of independence who found herself standing up for personal beliefs and freedom against the might of the Roman Empire.
The production draws on contemporary sources, including Perpetua's own diary - an astonishing survival from the ancient world, which brings her personal journey to life with startling immediacy.
Beslan is not a Cantata Dramatica commission. The piece was composed by Nick Bicât in collaboration with his brother Tony, as a response to the tragic events in Beslan, North Ossetia, where 186 children and over 140 adults were massacred by Islamic militants who occupied a school and held over 1,100 people hostage for three days in September 2004.
'Between Sea and Sky' the eponymous movement from Solfa Carlile's collection of three Byzantine hymns, was premiered in Exeter College Chapel, Oxford, on 2 Feb by Oxford-based ensemble Untune the Sky.