A rare contemporary performance of the epic The Song of Hiawatha Op 30 by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Based on the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, this work comprises three cantatas, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, The Death of Minnehaha and The Departure of Hiawatha. The composer originally conducted it with Rochester Choral Society in 1898, the year of its debut, and we are delighted to perform this thrilling work again. It was an immense popular success on its publication, both in England and internationally, and was subsequently sung every year at the Royal Albert Hall, with many of the audience attending in costume. 

The concert will open with the lyrical Blest Pair of Sirens by Hubert Parry to a setting of John Milton's ode At a Solemn Musick, describing the rapture of listening to sacred music.