Renaissance masterpiece provides 

choral soul food for Holy Week

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ORA Singers perform Victoria’s monumental Requiem Mass of 1605

With world premiere ORA commissions by Dobrinka Tabakova and Eoghan Desmond

St Columba’s Church, Knightsbridge, London. Tuesday 31 March 7pm

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One of the UK’s leading professional vocal ensembles, ORA Singers, will perform Tomás Luis de Victoria’s sublime Requiem Mass (1605) at St Columba's Church on 31 March, in the heart of Holy Week.

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Widely regarded as one of the great masterpieces of Renaissance sacred music, Victoria’s Requiem comes from the fervent spiritual world of the Spanish Counter-Reformation. Written for the funeral of the Dowager Empress Maria of Austria and scored for six unaccompanied vocal parts, the work is renowned for its luminous polyphony and emotional intensity.

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In the reflective days of Holy Week — and perhaps especially in our unsettled times — its themes of rest, eternal light and peace resonate deeply, offering audiences a rare opportunity to pause and experience music of extraordinary spiritual power and beauty.

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The programme also includes two world premieres: new works by the acclaimed British-Bulgarian composer Dobrinka Tabakova and the outstanding young composer Eoghan Desmond. These form part of ORA Singers’ remarkable commissioning project, which reaches its 100th new work this year when the ensemble celebrates its 10th anniversary at London’s Wigmore Hall.

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The award-winning ORA Singers are directed by Suzi Digby, one of Britain’s most respected choral conductors.

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‘Victoria’s Requiem is a piece that’s very close to my heart,’ says Digby. ‘When those voices come together in that sound world, something extraordinary happens — the world seems to slow down and you can simply breathe within the music.’

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Performed in the intimate acoustic of St Columba’s, an oasis of calm in the heart of London’s Knightsbridge, this special Holy Week performance offers a rare opportunity to hear one of the choral canon’s most moving masterpieces alongside significant new works written for our own time.

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Journalists and editors are warmly invited to attend.

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For tickets, contact jack.rush@orasingers.com

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