CHURCHES, STARS, ANTHEMS Presented by Liszt Academy

Strange instruments, singing and clapping nuns, unusual polyphony and Latin masses set to music: the Liszt Kidz Academy samples all these this autumn – as well as, of course, examining what impact these have had on our favourite composers – as we launch a brand-new series Divine Music. Our journey starts out from home, so in this the first episode of the series we travel across to Western Europe and a world of churches which, despite our supposed familiarity, still retains many secrets, with spiritual songs meandering around ecclesiastical stone columns and over chilly flagstones, winding melodies praising God, and prayers chanted on a single note yet still sounding magnificent. There is a separate course at the Liszt Academy for those who would like to be active participants in the musical world of Christian ceremonies: this is the Church Music Department. Students of the faculty, accompanied by the university’s instrumental students, present how the story of the Three Kings was related with music in the Middle Ages, how a Baroque composer went about writing church music, and what sort of tools a modern composer uses when approaching these ancient musical traditions.