Tacoma Museum Hosts Seattle’s Tudor Choir

The fifteen-year-old Tudor Choir, directed by Doug Fullington, has received national and international attention as interpreters and performers of Renaissance music.

They perform extensively throughout the Pacific Northwest, including appearances in Vancouver, BC, and Portland. Through 2007, the choir was Artist-in-Residence at Saint Mark's Cathedral and a Resident Ensemble at Saint Thomas Episcopal Church in Medina, WA. The Tudor Choir has collaborated with Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Seattle Opera, and Seattle Symphony Orchestra. The choir has also performed live on National Public Radio's A Prairie Home Companion.

“The Tudor Choir’s live performance of Tallis’ music is being presented as a deliberate counterpoint to Janet Cardiff’s recorded sound installation which features his most complex composition, Spem in Allium, ” said Paula McArdle, Director of Education and Public Programming for Tacoma Art Museum. “In addition, the religious themes in Tallis’ choral works have a direct relation to our other exhibition, Illuminating the Word: The St. John Bible. Presenting this concert on the same evening of exhibition’s opening highlights the connections between these two artistic experiences. It’s always exciting to incorporate interdisciplinary programming such as this concert in our educational offerings and it been wonderful to work with local, and yet internationally recognized, performers on this project.”

Tallis was the only sixteenth-century English composer to have worked under four monarchs—Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary Tudor, and Elizabeth I—during decades of political and religious upheaval. He occupies a primary place in anthologies of English church music, and is considered among the best of its early composers. His masterpiece, Spem in Alium, is widely regarded as one of the most intricate and beautiful compositions of the English Renaissance. Written in 1573 for a forty-voice choir, the twelve-minute choral composition requires eight choirs of five voices (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass). At the concert, the twelve singers of the Tudor Choir will sing many other selections in both Latin and English from Tallis’ long career to offer a well-rounded view of the composer’s body of work. -- www.tacomaartmuseum.org