Help us record a CD of magical Carols, as heard on Radio 4's Saturday Live w Bake Off's Prue Leith https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001gnv
Early music group The Telling create intimate performances that often are “more than a concert.”
Last December we had the most amazing response to our live performance of carols on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live show with Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir - alongside Bake Off presenter Prue Leith, with whom we swapped mincemeat recipes in the greenroom! You can listen again here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001gnv
We had an amazing response including this lovely email:
“On Saturday I drove my daughter to her carols rehearsal, got in the car to drive home, and turned on the radio. Saturday Live, a programme I never listen to, and I was set to turn it off when you started to sing Lullay, my child, and I was captivated by it. Spellbound, really. A quick search once home and I discovered the St. Thomas More concert and got a ticket. You were all wonderful.”
Right now we need your help to make possible our dream of this music: our next Christmas tour and second CD: The Secret Life of Carols.
Yes - we're aware that it may seem rather the wrong time of year to be talking about carols - but it takes time to raise the money, record, edit and release a CD in time!
In true The Telling style, this won't be an ordinary tour or an ordinary CD!
The concerts will include animated projections by animator Kate Anderson & the CD tracks will also be used to create a Carol Advent Calendar with film and soundtrack behind each window released each day from 1 December. You can see our pilot film here
This will be our second CD, following from the critical acclaim of our first which was selected for the BBC Music Magazine Playlist and received 4 and 5 star reviews in the national press:
“beguiling, Siren-like voices.. the fervent, florid chants of Hildegard of Bingen – so fragrant you can almost smell them…. The vocal colours of the two principal singers complement each other well: Clare Norburn’s clear, silvery, bell-like soprano just the foil for Ariane Prüssner’s resonant wine-dark tones…. There is an expressive ardour to these performances that is hard to resist.”
Kate Bolton-Porciatti (Mar 2019) BBC Music Magazine:
★★★★ Performance | ★★★★★ Recording
The line up will be Clare Norburn, soprano, Ariane Prussner, mezzo and Kaisa Pulkkinen & Jean Kelly, medieval, Celtic and baroque harps. It will be produced and engineered by the wonderous Adrian Hunter (who earned his BBC Music Mag 5 stars for our first CD) and released on First Hand Records
The carols will include uplifting and intimate carols from the Middle Ages & lesser-known Traditional carols from around Europe (England, Finland, Catalonia, France, Germany, Austria) and some old favourites including our arrangement of Stille Nacht (watch the film for a sneak preview).
We believe it will capture the magic that people responded to on Radio 4.
Making this recording would be a dream come true for us. But we need to raise £8000 up front recording costs, of which we hope to raise at least £5000 from an appeal and crowdfunding.
We know the notes. We’ve booked the church in the Cotswolds and the recording engineer but we can’t afford to go ahead until we have the funds.
And we only have until 26 July to complete our fundraising.
So Please help us make it a reality by making a donation or simply by pre-ordering the CD and paying for it NOW! (You could order several as Christmas presents and be super organised). As a thank you, anyone giving more than £50 will be invited to our CD launch reception in December.
The Telling is a registered charity so if you make a donation (rather than pre-order the CD or claim a reward) your donation will be eligible for Gift Aid if you are UK Tax Payer.
This project successfully funded on 29th July 2019