The repertoire of Paul Hillier’s Denmark-based vocal ensemble spans 10 centuries, but very often it’s the music the group has commissioned and introduced that dominates its concerts. True to form, the programme that Hillier and the Theatre of Voices brought to Kings Place included new works by Nigel Osborne and Julia Wolfe, both receiving their London premieres. They framed a piece that is now almost half a century old, and qualifies as a contemporary classic.
Strictly speaking neither of the new pieces was a cappella. In Osborne’s The Tree of Life, the four singers were accompanied by an oud, the Middle Eastern lute, played by Rihab Azar. The piece comes out of Osborne’s experience of working in a Syrian refugee camp in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon; each of the seven texts relates to objects – a rosary, an olive branch, a balloon – that were of particular significance to members of the workshop team that Osborne was training. His effective, often touching settings are lucidly tonal, with the oud adding just occasional embroidery to the vocal textures.
