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The Great and Wide Sea - Crescendo Music Festival

  • All Saints Church, Pakefield Causeway Lowestoft, England, NR33 0JZ United Kingdom (map)

Click picture to enlarge festival brochure

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, illustrated by Gustave Dore

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, illustrated by Gustave Dore

THE GREAT AND WIDE SEA

In this special festival event, the five unaccompanied male singers of Opus Anglicanum and their narrator Zeb Soanes present an atmospheric programme of original commissions from two of the UK’s leading female composers: a complete reading of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic Rime of the Ancient Mariner with music by Lynne Plowman, and Sally Beamish’s powerful Sea Psalm, setting an account from the only surviving officer of the destroyer HMS Duchess, which was sunk on 12 December 1939. Come and enjoy this memorable concert in the evocative setting of Pakefield Church, from where you can gaze out over the great and wide sea...

LYNNE PLOWMAN Rime of the Ancient Mariner 

SALLY BEAMISH Sea Psalm

Tickets: £15 standard / £3 under-25s

Bring Your Own Drinks (we will supply glasses)

Lynne Plowman won the 2003 British Composers Award and has composed for Welsh National Opera, Glyndebourne Opera, Royal Shakespeare Company, and the London Mozart Players.  

Zeb Soanes brings the text of Coleridge’s 1798 epoch-making poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to life with terrific poise, elegance and occasional humour.

- Reviews Gate

Sally Beamish is a composer whose work is performed and broadcast internationally. She has composed for the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Opera, and BBC Proms.

“Embodying the voice of the sole surviving officer of a World War II naval accident, Soanes brought tension and drama to his account of the dramatic splitting of a ship into two halves, with great loss of life. His timing of the narrative episodes in this complexly structured work was flawless.”

— Claire Seymour, Seen and Heard International