The Utopia Ensemble performs 16th-century polyphony with spoken texts by Philipp Blom, inspired by Thomas More's Utopia.
Utopia Ensemble bring In Terra Aliena to St Martin's Church on Saturday 24 October, starting at 19:30. It's a night that blends 16th-century polyphony with spoken text, and the whole thing is built around Thomas More's Utopia.
The music comes from the Franco-Flemish school of the 1500s, with pieces by composers like Lassus, Isaac and Clemens. That's the polyphony part — multiple independent melodic lines weaving together, a sound that's as much about the architecture of the voices as it is about the tune. The ensemble weaves those works around texts specially commissioned from the philosopher and historian Philipp Blom, who'll be there to read them himself. The title, In Terra Aliena, is Latin for 'in a foreign land'.
More wrote Utopia while he was in Antwerp, and the performance takes that starting point — the search for an ideal home — and turns it into a meditation on belonging, hope and the dream of a better world. It's a way of letting the old music speak to things that still feel current, and having the author on stage to deliver the text gives the whole thing a direct, human presence rather than just letting the music stand on its own.
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On the singing side, the ensemble is made up of five voices: Michaela Riener on mezzo, Bart Uvyn on countertenor, Adriaan De Koster on tenor, Lieven Termont on baritone and Guillaume Olry on bass. They're joined by Philipp Blom, who's both the writer and the narrator. The work is supported by the Delegation of Flanders to the UK and Ireland.
Tickets are £25 or £18, with under-30s half price and under-12s free. It starts at 19:30 at St Martin's Church, Lewes Road, Brighton BN2 3HQ.
