Image: Ntando Brown

Hear a call to action to fight climate change, performed to a live audience for the first time by Chineke! Orchestra.

Commissioned by Christian Aid, Song of the Prophets: A Requiem for the Climate was performed and recorded by Chineke! Orchestra behind closed doors at St Paul’s Cathedral and received its world premiere online in June 2021.

Four Black British composers each produced thematic movements, which together form a meditation on the climate emergency, as imagined from a theological perspective.

Beginning with ‘Creation’, written by Ayanna Witter-Johnson; followed by ‘Ruin’ by Daniel Kidane; ‘Recovery’ (by Shirley J Thompson OBE; and ‘Redemption’ by Roderick Williams OBE.

Each movement is interspersed with improvisations on traditional instruments (tabla, nyatiti, talking drums), played by musicians originating from regions in the Global South that are bearing the brunt of climate change devastation.

The concert also includes the international premiere of the work Dawn by Afghan musicians Meena Karimi and Arson Fahim. It portrays the pains, dreams, hopes, and struggles faced by women and girls in Afghanistan today—and ends on an unresolved chord, to symbolize the many challenges still faced by Karimi’s generation.

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint Georges, was known as one of the finest violinists and composers of his day, as evidenced in the Violin Concerto in G.

He was a contemporary of Mozart and there is renewed interest in this enigmatic figure who graced the courts and salons of 18th-century Paris.

The concert closes with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.1 in G minor (Winter Daydreams).

Composed when the composer was in his mid-20s, it was the result of a difficult writing process, but Tchaikovsky would later come to regard it as one of his best works

Performers

Chineke! Orchestra

Brandon Keith Brown, conductor

Adé Williams, violin

Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno

RENU (Renu Hossain)

Mohamed Gueye

Repertoire

Song of the Prophets: A Requiem for the Climate

• Ayanna Witter-Johnson: Creation (1st movement)

• Daniel Kidane: Ruin (2nd movement)

• Shirley Thompson: Recovery (3rd movement)

• Roderick Williams: Redemption (4th movement)

  Each movement is interspersed with improvisations on traditional instruments

Meena Karimi & Arson Fahim: Dawn

Bologne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges): Violin Concerto No 9 in G, Op 8

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Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.1 (Winter Daydreams)