Work of the Week - Michael Tippett: A Child of Our Time

Sir Michael Tippett’s internationally successful oratorio A Child of Our Time will be performed during the final concert of the North American National High School Choral Festival which will take place at New York’s Carnegie Hall on Friday 20th March.

A 185 strong chorus joined by soloists, Angela M. Brown (soprano), Meredith Arwady (contralto), Russell Thomas (tenor), Morris Robinson (bass) and conducted by Craig Jessop will unite with four choirs: The North Jersey Homeschool Association Chorale (Hawthorne, New Jersey), Pebblebrook High School Chamber Choir (Georgia, Atlanta), Shorewood High School Aeolian Choir (Shoreline, Washington) and Songs of Solomon: An Inspirational Ensemble (New York) who were selected from 80 applicant choirs.

Tippett started to compose A Child of Our Time on the day that war broke out in 1939, inspired by the actions of Herschel Grynspan, a 17-year-old Polish Jewish activist, shot and killed a German official a year earlier, triggering Kristallnacht and the terrible events that followed. The work is one of the most deeply moving and spiritually uplifting contemporary choral works of the 20th century, and is praised for its use of African American Spirituals in much the same way that Bach employed chorales in his great choral compositions.

• Michael Tippett - profile
• Information on the festival - carnegiehall.org
• Work details and sound clips