Genesis Foundation commission continues to move and inspire audiences after performances in the Sistine Chapel, London’s Barbican Centre and Scotland

James MacMillan’s Stabat mater is to receive its North American premiere on 7 November 2019 with a performance at New York’s Lincoln Center as part of its Great Performers series. The Stabat mater was commissioned by the Genesis Foundation for Harry Christophers and The Sixteen who will perform it in New York. They will be joined by Britten Sinfonia who have been the orchestra for all the other performances bar Scotland.

From its premiere in October 2016, MacMillan’s Stabat mater fast established itself as one of the most profound and moving contemporary sacred compositions. When the work was performed in the Sistine Chapel in April 2018 it become the first concert to be live-streamed from the Vatican. A highly praised album of the work, on The Sixteen’s own label, CORO is their best-selling recording of all time.

The Genesis Foundation is the country’s leading commissioner of sacred choral music, having commissioned 27 works to date, and has a long history of supporting both James MacMillan and Harry Christophers and The Sixteen.

Since his first work for the Foundation, Padre Pio’s Prayer (2008), MacMillan now combines his Genesis Foundation commissions with mentoring other Genesis composers to reflect the guiding ethos of the Foundation. Summer 2019 will see the world premiere of his biggest commission yet from the Genesis Foundation, details of which will be announced in April.

The majority of the Genesis Foundation’s commissions have been for Harry Christophers and The Sixteen, including last year’s Star of Heaven which featured four world premieres of works based on texts from the Eton Choirbook. The Genesis Foundation has funded Genesis Sixteen, the free choral training programme for singers aged 18-23, since its inception in 2011.

John Studzinski, Founder and Chairman, Genesis Foundation said: “I am delighted that James’s Stabat mater is to receive its American premiere. Truly great works of art are rare. Works that challenge, deeply move and yet are also able to give hope are even rarer. James’s Stabat mater is all that and more. Those of us who have been fortunate to experience the Stabat mater live in concert know that it is a masterpiece that encompasses the timelessness of Mary’s grief for her dying son, a story as relevant today as it has ever been.”

James MacMillan commented: “Conversations with John Studzinski led directly to the composition of my Stabat mater. A great modern humanitarian inspired by faith, John always has interesting and pertinent things to say about the arts and the contemporary world. We agreed that the Stabat mater is a text which captures the sense of grief and anxiety which pervades much of the world today, afflicted as it is by war, despair and mass migration.”

Image credit: Adrian Myers

Founded in 2015 by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, Good Chance built its first temporary theatre in the Calais ‘Jungle’ camp. The theatre became a civic and cultural centre of the camp and a powerful voice in the international conversation about the refugee and migrant crisis. Robertson and Murphy subsequently wrote a play, The Jungle, based on their experiences in the Calais camp.

The Jungle, directed by Justin Martin and Olivier and Tony Award-winner Stephen Daldry, received its world premiere at the Young Vic in 2017 to overwhelming critical and audience acclaim, later transferring to The Playhouse Theatre in the West End and winning Best New Production of a Play in the Broadway World UK Awards 2018.

The play has just completed a successful run at St Anne’s Warehouse in New York, with Ben Brantley of the New York Times writing “Thrilling… ravishing… devastating…it feels as if all the world is holding its breath.” Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter described the production as “A stunning feat of design. A marvellously realised production…essential viewing.”

The Jungle will now receive its West Coast premiere in San Francisco at The Curran theatre where its arrival is hotly anticipated, with performances from 26 March until 19 May.

Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson were joint recipients of the 2018 Genesis Prize for their outstanding work with Good Chance Theatre. Worth £25,000, the Genesis Prize is the only prize which recognises outstanding mentoring of artistic talent and gives winners the opportunity to expand on that work.

Image credit: Marc Brenner

This week Lekan Lawal, winner of the Genesis Future Directors Award 2019, is making his directorial debut at the Young Vic Theatre with Wild East by April De Angelis, running until 16 February. Described in Variety as “the funniest play Ionesco never wrote”, Wild East artfully turns the most sterile of settings, a corporate job interview, into a sharp comedy about the hypocrisy of human nature and the compromises we make.

The Genesis Future Directors Award supports and nurtures emerging directors by providing them with an opportunity to explore and develop their craft as they create their first fully-resourced stage production at the Young Vic.

Past recipients include John Wilkinson (2018), Debbie Hannan (2018), Lucy J Skilbeck (2017), Nancy Medina (2017), Ola Ince (2016), Bryony Shanahan (2016), Rikki Henry (2015) Finn Beames (2014), Tinuke Craig (2014), Matthew Xia (2013) and Ben Kidd (2012).

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Credit: Gabriel Mokake

Wild East by April De Angelis, directed by Lekan Lawal runs until 16 February in the Clare.

General tickets are now sold out, but the Young Vic is operating a returns queue each night. More information here.

A public concert at the Royal Academy of Arts, including world premiere of Genesis Foundation commission by Angus McPhee

Programme of music from the Sistine Chapel by Allegri and Josquin, with Sir James MacMillan’s Miserere and a world premiere by Angus McPhee, commissioned by the Genesis Foundation

On 27 February, Eamonn Dougan and The Sixteen will give a concert in the new Benjamin West Lecture Theatre at the Royal Academy of Arts, generously made possible by the Genesis Foundation. The concert is inspired by the Royal Academy’s Bill Viola/Michelangelo exhibition, which is sponsored by the Genesis Foundation, mirroring the pairing of old and new with music from the Sistine Chapel by Allegri and Josquin, coupled with musical responses from contemporary composers Sir James MacMillan and a world premiere by Angus McPhee, commissioned by the Genesis Foundation.

The Genesis Foundation has long been a supporter of The Sixteen, commissioning many choral works as well as funding Genesis Sixteen, its free choral training programme for singers aged 18-23. McPhee was part of the inaugural Genesis Sixteen in 2011, and his piece is the 28^th work to be commissioned by the Foundation.  His piece Panem Nostrum… Ave Maria takes its influence from a setting of the same text by Franco-Flemish composer Josquin des Prez.

John Studzinski says:

“The Sixteen are treasured long-term partners of the Genesis Foundation. For 15 years, this peerless choir have performed many Genesis Commissions including James MacMillan’s Stabat mater in the Sistine Chapel and formed Genesis Sixteen to nurture young singers and conductors. The Sixteen’s choice of repertoire is always inspirational and tonight’s is no exception as they’ve crafted a programme that perfectly complements the Viola / Michelangelo show. Like these artistic giants, The Sixteen have fused the contemporary with the timeless, creating something uniquely powerful that allows us to contemplate the presence of the divine in our lives.”

For tickets and further information on this exhibition, click here.

For more information on the Genesis Foundation’s partnership with The Sixteen, click here.

BILL VIOLA / MICHELANGELO: LIFE, DEATH, REBIRTH
26 January – 31 March 2019

The Genesis Foundation is proud to announce its sponsorship of the Royal Academy of Arts’ major new exhibition Bill Viola / Michelangelo: Life, Death, Rebirth. This is the first time the Genesis Foundation has supported the work of the Royal Academy.

Bringing together the work of the pioneering video artist Bill Viola with drawings by Michelangelo the exhibition will explore how, though working five centuries apart and in radically different media, these artists share a deep preoccupation with the nature of human experience and existence.

The exhibition is an opportunity to see major works from Viola’s long career and some of the greatest drawings by Michelangelo, together for the first time.

John Studzinski, Founder & Chairman of the Genesis Foundation said:“Bill Viola’s art enables us to contrast the material and metaphysical worlds. Experiencing his work gives us greater insight into our own faith. Presenting Viola’s work with Michelangelo’s will create a dialogue between them on their mutual preoccupation with the presence of the divine in our lives. 
“In presenting Viola / Michelangelo, the Royal Academy shares with the Genesis Foundation a commitment to attracting new audiences to art that contemplates the divine. 
“As we will experience with Bill Viola / Michelangelo, the fusing of the contemporary with the timeless creates something uniquely powerful.”

Andrea Tarsia, Head of Exhibitions at the Royal Academy said: “We hope this exhibition will offer our audiences an opportunity to consider ongoing traditions of spiritual and affective art, by bringing together two artists who have made this such a cornerstone of their very conception of what art is. Despite the difference in time, place and medium both Viola and Michelangelo offer deeply moving visions of the nature of existence, and of the relation between the material and the spiritual.”

As part of the Genesis Foundation’s support for the exhibition they are presenting long-term partners Harry Christophers and The Sixteen in a concert at the Royal Academy. Entitled Miserere, the concert on 27 February is a programme of music from the Sistine Chapel by Allegri and Josquin with musical responses from contemporary composers James MacMillan and Angus McPhee who has been commissioned by the Genesis Foundation to compose a new work inspired by the works of Bill Viola and Michelangelo.

Carys Bowkett is the 24^th Genesis LAMDA Scholar to graduate from the leading drama school. She completed her BA in Professional Acting with flying colours last June and has already signed with HMcP Agency. We caught-up with her between two exciting auditions.

The freedom to try, fail, learn and try again

I feel incredibly grateful to have been given the opportunity of studying at LAMDA with the support of the Genesis Foundation. Drama school was one of the most amazing, challenging, empowering experiences of my life. There’s nothing that can really prepare you for it, it’s something that’s hard to explain to new students coming into the school. You can talk about the long hours, the emotionally tiring Uta Hagen exercises, trying to fit through doors in huge hoop skirts for the restoration project and of course the incredible teachers who are there to help you with all of this, every step of the way. But it’s hard to explain to someone just what it means to be given a safe space that empowers you to learn. Somewhere that instils in you the confidence to take a flying leap at an exercise, fall flat on your face and then pick yourself up and try again. I am incredibly grateful to the Genesis Foundation for financially supporting me through my studies, so that I didn’t need to worry about how I was going to top up my student loan in order to pay the rent. I could put all my time and energy into the free fall of trying, failing, and learning.

Dream roles

There’s so much I want to do. There’s a lot going on politically at the moment and it feels incredibly important to have a range of voices speaking out. I’m also incredibly interested in period dramas. I think we learn a lot from the past. I know before I started LAMDA there were so many important stories from history that I had no idea about and have really learnt from. I’d love to share that experience with others. It feels like a good time at the moment to take stock of what we’ve learnt as a society in the past and not repeat those same mistakes. I also left LAMDA with a huge excitement to create my own work and hope to take some of my ideas to the next stage soon.

The Genesis Network

Having my mentor has been invaluable. I think the Genesis LAMDA Network is a fantastic idea for everyone first entering the industry both in terms of your mentor’s contacts and advice but mostly their support and reassurance in not feeling alone in a very big industry. Genesis has also provided practical on-going support through things like a Twitter course – helping us to become better at marketing ourselves through social media.

Diversity, scholarships and finding your voice

One of the best things about going away to study at LAMDA was getting to meet and learn alongside so many amazing people from different backgrounds and with different life experiences. LAMDA does great work striving to take this further all the time, but the diversity we did have was invaluable. Our individual experiences would make us look at exercises in different ways which enabled us to learn hugely from everyone’s different approaches.  I was taken out of my rural bubble (where, with dangerously underfunded schools and little to no career opportunities it’s easy to begin to feel forgotten about by society) and shown that there is a larger world out there which I am a part of. Scholarships help massively with ensuring diversity in the school. One in five people in my year were on a scholarship and I can’t tell you how amazing that is, not just for the arts, but for society as a whole. Although unfortunately since starting my degree I have seen the path through which I got to LAMDA being cut off for others. I was extremely lucky to have an amazing drama teacher who could help me come up with a plan of action to combat my financial hurdles – someone who believed in me and could work with me on my audition speeches. But sadly due to massive funding cuts, the amazing drama department that went beyond their syllabus to make sure we were as prepared as anyone applying from a private school, has gone.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have an amazing, nurturing agent who is getting me into rooms that I never would have thought possible. I’ve had the most incredible and varied experiences from flying (on more than one occasion) to jumping off the top of fantastical staircases. I’ve got to meet and work with some incredible people, and for every opportunity I am given I thank my lucky stars that somewhere along the way, the Genesis Foundation decided to redress the balance in our industry and give someone like me a chance at drama school. Since graduating I’ve learnt that now more than ever it’s important to remain sane in a world that can often feel out of your control, but I’m continuing to learn from every experience that is thrown my way and am getting closer and closer to where I want to be.

Coming from an underprivileged area can give you the mentality that ‘some things just aren’t for me’. Just keeping your head above water is a massive achievement and not to be scoffed at. Sometimes it felt like it was so improbable that I was even at drama school, that I had only made it there on a wing and a prayer and that at any moment I could be found out – that these amazing opportunities weren’t for people like me. But, LAMDA taught me that I have a valid opinion, and I have a voice. We should all have the right to an education and a voice. Huge issues are caused when we take the voices of different sections of society away. The whole experience at LAMDA has filled me with the confidence that I need going out into the industry. LAMDA and the Genesis Foundation have taught me, that yes, these opportunities are for people like me too.Taking people’s opportunities away and making them feel like they ‘can’t’ do something is an incredibly dangerous and harmful thing to do. In my experience LAMDA is one of the few trying to counteract that by actively going out there with outreach in schools, and regional auditions, and saying you ‘can’. With talent and hard work, you CAN. We will support you so that you CAN. And that is a beautiful and important thing. It fills me with hope for the future, because I want to be a part of a society that gives a voice to people at every level.

Watch this space

You can keep track of Carys’s career on Twitter @CarysBowkett, on her spotlight page and the HMcP website.

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For over 15 years, John Studzinski and the Genesis Foundation have supported LAMDA by helping the Academy nurture and develop talented young actors through an annual Genesis Scholarship. The Genesis LAMDA Scholarship is funded by the Genesis Foundation and covers the tuition fees of an exceptionally talented actor’s three years of study, as well as offering a substantial contribution to their living expenses. Former Genesis LAMDA scholars such as Samuel Barnett and Tom Riley have gone on to enjoy diverse and critically-acclaimed careers on the stage and screen.

The Genesis LAMDA Network at the internationally renowned drama school in West London is a flagship mentoring programme for actors, stage managers and technicians, which offers students vital support beyond graduation and equips them with the skills and knowledge they need to develop successful and sustainable careers in the industry.

Click here to read about our partnership with LAMDA

Lekan Lawal and Caitriona Shoobridge have been awarded the 2019 Genesis Future Directors Award by the Young Vic. Lekan Lawal will direct Wild East, by April De Angelis, and Caitriona Shoobridge will direct Hattie Naylor’s Ivan & The Dogs, as part of Kwame Kwei-Armah’s second season as Artistic Director.

Lekan Lawal trained as an actor at LAMDA before becoming a director. He took part in the Royal Court Theatre’s Young Writer’s Programme and was a resident director at Derby Theatre as part of the Regional Theatre Young Directors Scheme. He directs April De Angelis’ surreal Wild East in The Clare in February 2019. Described in Variety as “the funniest play Ionesco never wrote” her outlandish, bitterly funny play artfully turns the most sterile of settings, a corporate job interview, into a sharp comedy about the hypocrisy of human nature and the compromises we make.

Caitriona Shoobridge was Jerwood Assistant Director at The Young Vic in 2014 and directed the Parallel production to the main house production, Yerma in 2016. She has worked as an associate / assistant director at Headlong, Almeida and Young Vic and trained on the NT Studio Director’s Course. Hattie Naylor’s Ivan & The Dogs is a one-person fable of post-communism self-determination. The play is based on the true story of Ivan, a four-year-old boy who, tired of his drunken parents, decides to leave home. On the cold streets of Moscow he befriends a dog and its pack who become his family.

The award, created in 2012, supports and nurtures emerging directors by providing them with an opportunity to explore and develop their craft as they create their first fully-resourced stage production at the Young Vic. Recipients of past Genesis Future Directors Awards include John Wilkinson and Debbie Hannan (2018), Lucy J Skilbeck and Nancy Medina (2017), Ola Ince (2016), Bryony Shanahan (2016), Rikki Henry (2015) Finn Beames (2014), Tinuke Craig (2014), Matthew Xia (2013) and Ben Kidd (2012).
The Genesis Foundation has supported the Young Vic for more than ten years and currently funds the Young Vic’s Genesis Directors Programme, the Genesis Fellowship, the Genesis Directors Network and the Genesis Future Directors Award programmes.

For more information about the Genesis Foundation Future Directors Award, click here.

Wild East
By April De Angelis
Directed by Lekan Lawal
Clare Studio, 6 – 16 Feb

Ivan & Dogs
By Hattie Naylor
Directed by Caitriona Shoobridge
Clare Studio, 10 – 20 July

Box Office: www.youngvic.org | 020 7922 2922

Elyse over the years around the world, from Cuba to Palestine, and only last week in Peru. Here with Sarah Kane, Rufus Norris, John Studzinski and international playwrights.

It is with profound sadness that the Genesis Foundation has learnt of the passing of Elyse Dodgson, Head of the International Department at the Royal Court Theatre.

Elyse was a loyal, much-loved and admired partner of the Genesis Foundation and John Studzinski over the past twenty years.

Her talent, enthusiasm, vision and drive changed the lives of thousands of theatre-makers. With boundless energy, she nurtured emerging talent and developed ground-breaking work with playwrights from all over the world as part of the Royal Court’s International Playwrights Programme, funded by the Genesis Foundation.

Elyse’s work enabled stories to be told, coming from countries where there is often censorship, war and no real culture of contemporary theatre, and encouraged playwrights to tackle subjects that have a direct bearing on the world around them. Elyse’s International Department has produced award-winning plays with writers from Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt and many more countries.

Founder and Chairman of the Genesis Foundation, John Studzinski, said:

“Elyse’s impact on the world of theatre is immense and includes nurturing and supporting playwrights in war zones, countries that don’t have a culture of contemporary theatre or one where new voices struggle to write free from censorship. In all these places Elyse made a deep and lasting difference to the world of theatre.”

Elyse will be sorely missed by everyone in the Genesis Foundation family.

Elyse in her own words about her incredible work at the Royal Court here.

The Eton Choirbook and its Legacy of Sacred Music and Hallowed, a new album by Harry Christophers & The Sixteen Release date: 2 November 2018

Genesis Foundation is delighted to announce that The Eton Choirbook and its Legacy of Sacred Music, which received its world premiere earlier this year and was live-streamed on Classic FM, a first for Eton College Chapel, has now been recorded by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen and released on CORO in an album entitled Star of Heaven.

Continuing its mission to commission new sacred music works and mentor young artists, the Genesis Foundation commissioned four new works by Sir James MacMillan and emerging composers Phillip Cooke, Marco Galvani and Joseph Phibbs. The commissions were all based on texts from the Eton Choirbook, an iconic music manuscript inscribed in the prestigious UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register, which features a collection of English sacred music composed by around twenty different composers during the late 15th century.

The Choirbook, a magnificent artefact, two feet tall and over three feet from side to side, it is one of the three collections of Latin liturgical music to survive the systematic destruction of Catholic religious imagery during the Reformation. The Eton Choirbook was on display during the world premiere, a rare occurrence that added to the uniqueness of the occasion.

Star of Heaven also features another Genesis Foundation commission, Stephen Hough’s exploration of faith worldwide – Hallowed which was premiered at the British Museum to accompany its Living with gods exhibition, sponsored by the Genesis Foundation.

John Studzinski, Founder and Chairman of the Genesis Foundation commented:

“The Eton Choirbook reminds us of man’s ability to both create and destroy sacred texts and objects. Sadly, such abilities are today as evident as they have ever been so as we celebrate the Eton Choirbook’s treasures and enable young composers to write in response to it we’re mindful of both what we’ve lost but also mankind’s constant need to respond to the sacred.

 “The Genesis Foundation has to date commissioned 21 pieces of choral sacred music to ensure new music of faith is constantly created and renewed. These latest commissions reflect our core beliefs in enabling artistic leaders to mentor younger talent and continuing our long-standing relationship with James MacMillan and Harry Christophers. I am also delighted that we are able to draw attention to the importance of the Eton Choirbook and its place in British history.”

John Studzinski and the Genesis Foundation are the most prolific commissioners of sacred choral music today, having commissioned more than 20 pieces of sacred music, several by James MacMillan, for Harry Christophers and The Sixteen who have performed and recorded these new works over the past decade.

Its most highly acclaimed commission to date is MacMillan’s Stabat mater, premiered at the Barbican and subsequently performed by The Sixteen and Britten Sinfonia under the baton of Harry Christophers in the Sistine Chapel in April 2018. The concert was the first ever live-streamed concert from this iconic venue and reached several million people worldwide.

The partnership between the Genesis Foundation, Sir James MacMillan and Harry Christophers has focused on the mentoring of young composers. Previous projects include the commissioning of three new Stabat mater in 2014 by Alissa Firsova, Tõnu Kõrvits and Matthew Martin, new music to poetry of the Spanish Mystics by Ruth Byrchmore, Tarik O’Regan and Roderick Williams in 2011 and, in 2008, James MacMillan, Roxanna Panufnik and Will Todd’s settings of Padre Pio’s prayer Stay with Me, Lord.

CORO is to release eleven albums across the 2018/19 season including a special collection to celebrate The Sixteen’s 40th anniversary.

Pre-order Star of Heaven: The Eton Choirbook Legacy, here.

To view a gallery of the world premiere of Hallowed, click here.

For more information on Genesis Foundation’s partnership with The Sixteen, click here.

Programme includes Genesis Foundation commissions by Sir James MacMillan, Philip Cooke, Marco Galvani and Joseph Phibbs

No fewer than four Genesis Foundation commissions will make their Scottish debuts on Sunday 7 October 2018 when The Eton Choirbook and its Legacy of Sacred Music is performed at the Cumnock Tryst Festival.

The Eton Choirbook and its Legacy of Sacred Music received its world premiere performance earlier this year at Eton College Chapel. Devised by long-term Genesis Foundation partner Harry Christophers, the programme combines music from the Eton Choirbook with new compositions that use texts from the Eton Choirbook.

The composers commissioned for this programme are Sir James MacMillan and three younger composers he has mentored Phillip Cooke, Marco Galvani and Joseph Phibbs.

Harry Christophers and The Sixteen are again the performers, and thanks to support from the Genesis Foundation, they return to Cumnock Tryst for the fifth year running. The festival was founded by MacMillan to bring some of the world’s greatest musicians to a rural part of Scotland ill served by cultural organisations.

The album of The Eton Choirbook and its Legacy of Sacred Music performed by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen is released on 2 November 2018.

This year’s Cumnock Tryst Festival runs from 4 – 7 October 2018, see the full programme here.

For more information on Genesis Foundation’s partnership with The Sixteen, click here.