The Water Diviner's Tale
In addition to our Sings Live! programme, 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 by Rachel Portman OBE on Monday 23 March at Worthing Assembly Hall.
Originally a schools’ project by Opera North, we are staging this environmentally aware performance as an oratorio massed choir & orchestra. Take a look here for a preview.
Tickets will be available via the Worthing Assembly Halls website.
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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.
She was also the first female composer to win an Emmy Award (OSCAR), 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!
For the BBC PROMS she wrote The Water Diviner’s Tale, a dramatic choral symphony. She also wrote Endangered performed at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing, Earth Song for the BBC Singers, and for Joyce Di Donato, The First Morning of the World as part of her Eden programme.
Rachel has released two piano albums – Ask The River (2020) and Beyond the Screen (2023) the latter which features some of her most cherished film music for solo piano and cello. Given an OBE in 2010, Rachel is an honorary fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Music.
