Danish super group Theatre of Voices return to Kings Place for the world premiere of John Luther Adams’ ‘A Brief Descent into Deep Time’ and David Lang’s award-winning The Little Match Girl Passion.

John Luther Adams, a composer revered for reclaiming our connections with the natural world, has been commissioned by Kings Place and Carnegie Hall to write for Theatre of Voices. The result, A brief descent, represents a procession through the geologic layers of the Grand Canyon. As Adams writes, ‘I’ve been following the rocks deeper into the canyon. Yesterday I passed the billion year mark. The colours of the rocks and the beauty of their names have carried me away. It’s a journey of fascination, even obsession.’ The song texts derive from the names of the geologic eras as well as major events in the history of the earth, including the five mass extinctions, spanning 1.7 billion years.

David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Little Match Girl Passion has been heard the world over since its premiere in 2001. With spare poigancy, Lang sets Hans Christian Andersen’s story of The Little Match Girl in the format of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, interspersing Andersen’s narrative with mesmerising choral & character responses.

The programme is completed by Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s Song, a striking refraction of Dowland’s ‘Flow my tears’.