Unison Voices Presents Karl Jenkins' "Miserere"

KARL JENKINS - "MISERERE: SONGS OF MERCY & REDEMPTION" - Premiered in South Africa by Unison Voices.

This composition for choir and orchestra was very recently composed as part of Karl Jenkins’ 75th birthday celebrations. It is filled with intriguing juxtapositions of various elements, while encapsulating the familiar dynamic rhythms and melodies that Jenkins is so renowned for. It centres around the cruel effects of war, but also the healing and uniting powers of music to bring people together.

It is harmonically rich as it incorporates sound landscapes from diverse cultures, using different instruments, vocal techniques, and tonalities (such as the Byzantine scale and the Freygish Jewish scale). Furthermore, not only does it include the usual Latin texts for the setting of the mass, but also Arabic, Hebrew, English, Greek and Aramaic lyrics alongside poems by Isaac Watts, St Thomas Aquinas, Dylan Thomas, and the 13th century Persian poet Rumi.

Unison Voices is a chamber choir located in Pretoria consisting of 40 members. They are a project choir, meaning they rehearse a themed repertoire programme for 4 to 5 months and then perform the pieces to complete the project. This Unison Voices project began in March and ends in July with the magnificent performance of Karl Jenkins’ “Miserere: Songs of Mercy and Redemption” which will be accompanied by a small orchestra ensemble. It was first performed and recorded in 2019 before the pandemic, and consequently Unison Voices’ performance of this work will be its South African PREMIERE and one of the first performances in the world! If you are interested in singing for the next project, please send us a message on our Facebook Page - @UnisonVoices

We invite you to experience this spectacular work with us - it's not to be missed!