Big Sing McLaren Vale presents Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man – A Mass for Peace Next Week

Big Sing McLaren Vale presents Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man - A Mass for Peace on Sunday 31 July at 3 pm at Tatachilla Lutheran College Stadium, McLaren Vale with a choir of 300 voices.

There are also two performances with the 150 voice student choir at the Adelaide Town Hall on Saturday 6 August at 3pm and 7:30pm.
Conducted by Carl Crossin OAM, this will be the first time the work has been performed in South Australia with full orchestral forces and The Armed Man Film.
The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace by Welsh composer Sir Karl Jenkins is the most performed work by any living composer (2700 performances world-wide since its premiere in 1999).

The Big Sing Chorus- 'a choir for all voices'-brings to life a collaboration between amateur choristers and South Australia's finest music education institutions, celebrates a multi-generational merging of voices, with students and adults of all ages and abilities. The massed choir of 300 singers-the biggest chorus in the history of Big Sing-is joined by the Elder Conservatorium Chorale and the choirs of Brighton and Marryatville High School Special Music Centres.

The 80-piece symphony orchestra boasts talented students from the two High Schools, together with professional and semi-professional players and mentors.
We are also delighted to be joined by boy soprano, Max Junge who recently appeared in State Opera's much acclaimed production of Turn of the Screw, and Farhan Shah who will sing the call to prayer.

The Armed Man charts the growing menace of a descent into war, interspersed with moments of reflection. It shows the horrors that war brings and ends with the hope for a future of peace, when sorrow, pain and death can be overcome.

"It's a modern classical work that wears its heart on its sleeve. Unnerving at times, achingly beautiful at others, it proves tragically relevant in today's world." Greg John, Big Sing McLaren Vale Artistic Director

The film delivers a poignant backdrop to the moving musical narration providing the audience with a powerful and emotional multimedia experience.

In addition to extracts from the Catholic Mass, the text incorporates words from other religious and historical sources, including the Islamic call to prayer, the Bible (Psalms and Revelation), the Mahabharata and words of Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Sankichi Toge, who survived Hiroshima, but died some years later of leukaemia.

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