The War Requiem, Op. 66

But, um, uh, there's something so familiar to me as a, as a, a conductor and a choral singer, uh, the Latin text to the Requiem is so well-known.

A- after singing Mozart's Requiem, Duruflé's, Verdi, uh, Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, the, the text is, is kind of embedded.

So that was, um, a, um, a pleasant task to work on.

Um, uh, I also had a, a very accomplished, uh, choir to write for with, uh, with, uh, professional leads in a, in an amateur church choir, but singing at a very high level.

I admired it, and I loved the piece, but I, I have never imagined before that I could conduct it.

But the thing was that, uh, in 2023 or something like that, I conducted the Britten's War Requiem for the first time, and it was quite successful performance because we did it, uh, one year after the Russian invasion to Ukraine, and it was a great success.

And after this concert, the head of the Czech Philharmonic and the Prague Philharmonic Choir, David Mareček, asked me on my next plans, what, what I would like to, to do next.

Uh, and I [laughs] answered, uh, "I'd like to conduct Jeanne d'Arc," and I didn't, uh, imagine that, that it, it can happen, but it has happened.

So, as this is a short one in terms of music choices chosen up front, you then went to something that was a little bit more serious that is, I think, going to be on the opening night of the festival, which I think is quite a bold thing, but it is such a big, big piece.

So it's Britain's War Requiem, which, yeah, I've listened to a few times, but, you know, I don't think I've seen it performed live yet.

I have sung it once.

Yeah.

I feel like it will be a full night for us.

And that was what I was going to say, actually.

It's not a normal crowd pleaser, but when it was announced this week that we were opening with the War Requiem, cheers went up.

I've had lots of people come up to me and go, oh, fantastic.