It’s not long to go now until the performance of The Water Diviner’s Tale, a piece created by West Sussex based composer and Academy Award winner, Rachel Portman OBE.
West Sussex Music is bringing experienced and confident choirs together with the West Sussex Youth Choir and West Sussex Youth Orchestra to perform The Water Diviner’s Tale on Monday 23 March at 7pm at Worthing Assembly Hall.
Narrated by Elinor Moran and featuring five young professional soloists, the work will be performed by West Sussex Youth Orchestra, West Sussex Youth Choirs, Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, Felpham Community College, Handcross Primary School, Midhurst Rother College, Storrington Primary School, The Regis School, and The Southwater Junior Academy.
The Water Diviner’s Tale is an oratorio that deals with the issue of climate change. Written in 2007 by composer Rachel, and poet/novelist Owen Sheers, the work tells the inspiring and moving story exploring what is happening to our world due to climate change.
Rachel said, “This is a piece for our time. The music gives an emotional voice to the science behind climate change whilst seeking to inspire both performers and the audience to question our relationship with the Earth.”
Commissioned for the BBC Proms, this will be the first time the piece has been performed in Rachel’s home county. James Underwood, Chief Executive for West Sussex Music said,
“I know how hard everyone is working in rehearsing for this, and we’re all really looking forward to hearing it come together. Even though it was written almost twenty years ago, the messages are as resonant now as they were in 2007.”
Born in West Sussex, Rachel began composing at the age of 14 and read music at the University of Oxford, where she became interested in writing music for student films and theatre productions.
Rachel became the first female composer to win an Academy Award, which she received for the score of Emma and the first female composer to win an Emmy Award, which she received for the film Bessie. In 2023 she received her second Emmy for Julia. She has received two further Academy Nominations for The Cider House Rules and Chocolat, which also earned her a Golden Globe Nomination. She has scored over one hundred films!
Given an OBE in 2010, Rachel is an honorary fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Music.
To find our more and book tickets for The Water Diviner’s Tale, go here.
