The Voice Project’s tenth anniversary Timepiece for Norfolk & Norwich Festival

Marking the tenth anniversary of their formation, Norfolk’s multi award winning Voice Project Choir will be creating and performing another exciting durational event for the 2018 Norfolk & Norwich Festival.

Timepiece will be a 12 hour song cycle, beginning at noon on Friday 25 May with a single solo singer in Norwich Cathedral.

There will be subsequent performances in various parts of the cloisters and garth of the magnificent cathedral on the hour, every hour. Increasing numbers of singers will join in, building to the full choir of 150 voices with soloists and instrumentalists at 9pm, then fading back to solo voices at midnight.

The original music for the project has been written by Orlando Gough, Jonathon Baker and Sian Croose.

Each hourly performance will be about 10 minutes long and free to attend, other than the special ticketed event in the Cathedral between 9pm and 10pm for which the cathedral will be atmospherically and spectacularly lit in Voice Project’s trademark style. As the hours of the day progress, Timepiece will explore the human relationship with time.

‘It seems especially appropriate to create a piece about time for our tenth anniversary’ said Co- Director Sian Croose,

Jonathan Baker the Choir’s other Co-Director added  ‘As our lives seem to speed up and time appears to be in short supply, we wanted to make a piece which slows the pace down. Across twelve hours the piece will reflect on aspects of musical time and will think about the broader sweep of age and history in the timeless surroundings of the cloisters of Norwich Cathedral’.

‘We’ll look at the illusory, natural and musical nature of time’ said Voice Project co-Director Jonathan Baker. ‘How it affects us, controls us, how we speed it up, slow it down and, crucially, how music helps us to change our perceptions of it’ added fellow co-Director Sian Croose.

May is a busy month for the Voice Project Choir and its Directors Jonathan Baker and Sian Croose. As well as creating Timepiece for Norfolk & Norwich Festival they were invited to take their epic 10-hour overnight choral work, The Arms of Sleep, to the Brighton International Festival on 11, 12 and 13 May. There they staged one of their most ambitious and magical productions to date (first seen at N&N Festival 2017), at Firle Place, one of England’s most beautiful country houses and earned 5 star reviews and massive audience acclaim.

Created by Jonathan and Sian in 2008, The Voice Project Choir has become one of the best known in the east of England. It is renowned for its exceptional concerts of original music, high production values and for being totally open access with no auditions for those wishing to join. As a music education charity, the Voice Project also run singing classes, courses and workshops that, as well as helping participants learn vocal techniques, are designed to build confidence and help attenders explore a wide variety of uplifting and inspiring music.

For details of all their activities visit www.voiceproject.co.uk

Timepiece 25 May, noon – midnight, Norwich Cathedral The Close, Norwich NR1 4DH

Hourly free performances

9pm show £10 www.nnfestival.org.uk