Marin Alsop and the London Symphony Explore Joan of Arc's Legacy in a Weekend of Music

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Friday 4 – Sunday 6 November 2011, Barbican and LSO St Luke’s

2011 marks the 600th birthday of one of the most iconic heroines of all time – Joan of Arc. Conductor Marin Alsop will explore the legacy of Joan of Arc in a weekend of music, film and talks with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican and LSO St Luke’s from 4–6 November. The weekend is centred around a concert performance of Arthur Honegger’s rarely performed dramatic oratorio Joan of Arc at the Stake on Friday 4 November at 7.30pm at the Barbican. The London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus is joined by soloists including soprano Klara Ek, tenor Paul Nilon and soprano Katherine Broderick, and the New London Children’s Choir. Before the concert, at 5pm in the Barbican’s Fountain Room, Marin Alsop opens the weekend with a debate surrounding issues faced by women today that mirror those of the 15th-century heroine. She is joined by Dame Mary Marsh and other speakers to be announced.

On Saturday 5 November at 2pm at LSO St Luke’s, Marin Alsop leads a discussion on the position of women in the church. She will be joined by Reverend Lucy Winkett, Rector of St James’s Piccadilly, and the Reverend Gillean Craig, The Vicar of St Mary Abbots, Kensington. Other speakers to be announced.

Alsop and the LSO provide a live soundtrack to Carl Dreyer’s seminal 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc with a performance of Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light on Sunday 6 November at 7.30pm at the Barbican. Einhorn’s oratorio soundtrack forges a libretto from the writings of Joan of Arc, medieval mystics and the Bible. The Passion of Joan of Arc is a landmark in film history, described by The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw as ‘Stunning in its power, uncompromising in its severity and seriousness, Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent masterpiece from 1928 all but scorches a hole in the screen’.

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