Canticum, Julian Thomas & Mark Forkgen
Biography Canticum, Julian Thomas & Mark Forkgen
Canticum
One of the most musically versatile chamber choirs in the country. Ow in its 27th season, Canticum has been praised for accomplished performances of major works and for exploring contemporary repertoire. The choir has also commissioned new writing and gives regular first performances.
This season has seen the choir perform a Venetian inspired programme in the unique layout of St Stephen Walbrook, an inspiring combination of Victoria’s polyphony and modern contemplative Tavener and Part to a packed house at St Sophia’s Cathedral in Bayswater, in addition to joining the London Concert Choir in the Barbican for a well-received performance of Brahms’s German Requiem.
Last season’s highlights included the premiere of Stephen McNeff’s Armistice-inspired Walking Shadows combined with a performance of Mozart’s Requiem at St Martin-in-the-Fields, in addition to a Christmas concert in Southwark Cathedral in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care.
In recent times the choir has staged Poulenc’s Figure Humaine and a new work by Hywel Davies at the Cheltenham Music Festival and took the semi-chorus part in Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony at the Barbican.
Canticum has performed BBC Radio 4’s Christmas Morning Service, Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Orchestra of The Age of Enlightenment at St John’s, Smith Square and the première of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s Step by Circle, dedicated to Mark Forkgen and the choir.
By way of contrast, the choir opened the 2008 Chelsea Festival, providing choral voices for Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother alongside soloist David Gilmour.
The choir stages regular trips abroad, with Italy a favourite destination. Canticum has toured with works including Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Handel’s Messiah and Israel in Egypt, a performance which opened the Viterbo Early Music Festival to a packed audience. The choir toured Bulgaria in May 2013, performing in Sofia and Plovdiv for Bulgarian TV and radio. Recording, too, has an important place in Canticum’s schedule. The existing catalogue includes A Hymn to the Virgin, with works by Victoria, Poulenc and Panufnik, and two Christmas discs: A Christmas Carol and The Christmas Story. Another disc, In the Gloom of Whiteness with Craft Music, features work by Colin Riley, Fraser Trainer and Keith Roberts.
Julian Thomas
is Choirmaster and Head of Academic Music at Tonbridge School. He began his musical training as a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral and then as a music and academic scholar at Charterhouse, before going up to Cambridge as Organ Scholar at Jesus College. After graduating, he moved to Lincoln Cathedral as Second Assistant Organist, becoming a prize-winning Fellow of the Royal College of Organists in 2000.
For the next six years, Julian was the Assistant Organist and Director of the Girls’ Choir at Norwich Cathedral, during which time he regularly appeared on both radio and television accompanying and conducting choirs. In addition to this, he also directed the Edington Music Festival, including overseeing the 50th festival and a number of significant choral commissions.
As a recitalist, he has performed recently at Gloucester, Portsmouth, Southwark, Norwich and Westminster Cathedrals, Westminster Abbey, St Lawrence-Jewry and the Temple Church, London. His Christmas carol The Lord at first hath Adam made (Encore publications, 2010) has received a number of performances, including by London Concert Choir, and appears on a CD recording by Canticum. He is also Music Director of the North Downs Consort, a post which he took up at the start of this year.
Mark Forkgen
has directed London Concert Choir since 1996. He is also Music Director of Canticum chamber choir and Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of Kokoro, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s contemporary music ensemble, and Director of Music at Tonbridge School.
In his role as guest conductor Mark has conducted a number of leading British orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, English Chamber Orchestra, English Northern Philharmonia and Manchester Camerata. He has been Conductor and Artistic Advisor for highly acclaimed festivals including Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ seventieth birthday; Stravinsky, the Composers of the South-West and more recently “A Festival of Britten”.
Mark has conducted in Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Holland and the Czech Republic. He has also given performances of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in Denmark, as well as Handel’s Messiah and Israel in Egypt in Siena and at the Viterbo Early Music Festival in Italy.
A specialist in the field of choral and contemporary music, Mark has premiered more than a hundred works, including theatre works and contemporary operas. His wide range of conducting also includes performances of rock music classics. He also enjoys an active life as a pianist, focusing on twentieth-century and contemporary music.
Mark’s recordings with Canticum and Kokoro have been highly recommended by BBC Radio as well as in the musical and national press.
