Followers of The Saint John’s Bible who are looking to extend their Easter celebrations this year have a special event to look forward to on Thursday, April 8. On that date, London’s famous St. Martin-in-the-Fields church will be the site of a streaming online performance of Handel’s “Messiah,” complemented by projections of illuminations from The Saint John’s Bible on the church’s iconic east window. The performance will also be available on-demand for 30 days after the event.
Pairing Sounds and Sights
The concert will feature orchestral and choral performers from the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and St. Martin’s Voices combining their talents with the projection artists at Nina Dunn Studio. The projected illuminations have been “deconstructed and reconstructed for the space” explains Dunn, to add a layer of visual art to the treasured music of “Messiah.”
Photo by Marc Gascoigne
“Each of my team on this project has specific skills in painting and drawing so that we can work with the material sensitively and take out the elements that we want to feature, placing them in different parts of the environment and animating them to the music,” Dunn says. “The work is quite painstaking and detailed, but in some ways it feels like nothing compared to what Donald Jackson and his team did to create The Saint John’s Bible in the first place.”
Reuniting Talents
Andrew Earis, the church’s Director of Music, noted that St. Martin-in-the-Fields received a Heritage Edition in 2009 and “have been regularly incorporating it into worship ever since.”
In fact, in 2010, St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Dunn collaborated on a similar choral event with projected illuminations. This year’s event will feature a newly curated set of images, selected specifically to complement “Messiah.”
“It’s a thrill to be able to bring the Bible even more to life in this way, through the collaboration with Nina Dunn and St. Martin-in-the-Fields,” said Earis.
Reserve Your Ticket
The concert will stream live on Thursday, April 8 at 7:30 p.m. British Summer Time (1:30 p.m. Central Daylight Time), and will also be available on-demand for 30 days following the event. Tickets are £10 (approximately $13.77) and can be purchased on the St. Martin-in-the-Fields website.