CELEBRATORY 75TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT

To celebrate its 75th anniversary Barnt Green Choral will perform two significant and beautiful pieces of music at its show-piece spring concert at The Artrix Theatre, Bromsgrove  on 28 March 2026 – ‘The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace’ by Karl Jenkins and 'Song of the Universal' by Ola Gjeilo.

The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace by Karl Jenkins

Karl Jenkins (b 1944) is one of the most performed living composers in the world. He studied music at Cardiff University and at the Royal Academy of Music.  He manages to combine very different styles of music - from classical to pop - and to draw on different cultures from around the globe.

The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace was commissioned by the Royal Armouries to mark the transition from the last millennium. It reflects on the passing of “the most war-torn and destructive century in human history” and looks forward in hope to a more peaceful future. The Armed Man is dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo conflict, whose tragedy was unfolding as it was being composed. It was first performed in 2000 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, conducted by Jenkins himself.

Song of the Universal by Ola Gjeilo

Norwegian composer and pianist Ola Gjeilo was born near Oslo in 1978, and moved to New York City in 2001.  His beautiful composition Song of the Universal is a setting of a poem written by Walt Whitman in 1874, following the American civil war, which show’s optimism and confidence in mankind’s deeper humanity.