
CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED WORK COMES TO AUCKLAND CASTLE Saturday, 26 November 2016
Acclaimed Canadian artist Janet Cardiff’s profound and internationally celebrated sound installation, The Forty Part Motet, is going on public display at Auckland Castle.
The immersive installation is a contemporary reworking of English composer Thomas Tallis’s 16th-century composition ‘Spem in Alium’, sung by the Salisbury Cathedral Choir.
It sees 40 high fidelity speakers positioned on stands in a large oval playing the choral piece on a 14-minute loop. Visitors are encouraged to walk into the installation where, encircled by the speakers, they can listen closely to individual voices, or to experience the parts as a whole.
This is the first time since 2012 that The Forty Part Motet has been shown in the North East, having previously appeared at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead.
The Auckland Castle installation represents a rare opportunity to appreciate this transcendent and critically-acclaimed work.