HEAVEN
& HELL
Commission of new musical work
Previous finalists of the NCEM Young Composers Award were invited to propose a commission for Helen Charlston and Toby Carr.
A composer has now been selected from a competitive field full of ideas, and will be announced in 2025.
Helen Charlston
Mezzo Soprano
Toby Carr
Lutenist
The Brief
The new piece will be performed as part of Helen and Toby's new programme at York Early Music Festival 2025 on 9 July 2025. The programme takes the listener on a journey from Heaven to Hell through the music of Purcell, Strozzi, Monteverdi, Charpentier, Humfrey, and more.
The musicians' journey across the afterlife will explore both the sacred and secular, meeting paradise in the ordinary as well as the extraordinary, and finding the prison of hell both in the choices we love to make as well as the divine retribution of old. The two halves of this programme will be performed in two different spaces in the Merchant Adventurers Hall in York, tracing a downwards journey from Heaven to Hell.
The selected composer receives a commission fee of £2,000. They also receive travel and accommodation expenses within the UK to attend a workshop with the musicians in London in early 2025, and the premiere in York.
The commission is kindly supported by the Hinrichson Foundation
