Manchester Collective x The Marian Consort: Wintering at The Stoller Hall

Manchester Collective makes peace with the short, crisp days and long, dark nights of winter, with a concert that ushers in the solstice.

One of the country’s most daring chamber ensembles, Manchester Collective is joined at The Stoller Hall by The Marian Consort, an award-winning British vocal group known for their clarity, intimacy and poise. Together they explore music of stillness and renewal – from early polyphony to contemporary reflection.

The programme spans centuries, moving between an alternative nativity, crystalline harmonies and meditations on freedom and unity. Inspired by Katherine May’s bestselling book Wintering, a new work by Samantha Fernando invites us to embrace nature’s fallow period and draw on its power for healing. David Lang’s the national anthems, i. & iii. strips familiar patriotic language to its bare essence, questioning what binds us together, while Jonathan Dove’s Out of Time finds radiance in motion and breath.

Panufnik’s Song to the Virgin Mary glows with mystical serenity, setting Jerzy Pietrkiewicz’s modern Polish poem in music that feels timeless – reverent, radiant, and steeped in spiritual stillness, and selections from Orlando di Lassus’s Prophetiae Sibyllarum bring Renaissance colour to the mix – vivid, visionary harmonies notable for their chromaticism, which was innovative for the time.

Expect a balm for the soul – an invitation to slow down in a hectic time of year, and make peace with the winter.

Programme

Andrzej PANUFNIK Song to the Virgin Mary – string quartet and voices, 1970
Orlando DI LASSUS Selections from Prophetiae Sibyllarum Motets – voices, 1570
David LANG the national anthems, i. our land with peace, iii. fame and glory– string quartet and voices, 2014
Jonathan DOVE selections from Out of Time – string quartet, 2001
Samantha FERNANDO Wintering (new commission) – string quartet and voices, 2025