Chineke! Orchestra: Songs of the Prophets
Queen Elizabeth Hall

FOUNDED in 2015, the Chineke! Orchestra is Europe’s first majority black and ethnically diverse orchestra. Through its training outreach programme, the Chineke! Foundation, it is doing for classical music what the Tomorrow’s Warriors scheme has done for jazz, nurturing promising young talent through the use of accomplished and dedicated mentors – with staggering results.

Chineke! already has a history of taking on bold and innovative projects – such as unearthing previously neglected classics like 19th-century black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. So they were ideal candidates for performing Songs of the Prophets: A Requiem for the Climate.

Commissioned by Christian Aid, the piece comprises four movements by four different composers, on the themes of Creation, Ruin, Recovery and Redemption – each piece interspersed by solo improvisations on tabla, nyatiti and talking drum by master percussionists from Africa and Asia.

Ayanna Witter-Johnson’s Creation takes shape slowly and tentatively, arising from a silence punctuated by shy yet confident flourishes from clarinets, oboes and flutes, before being swept up by a lush expanse of legato strings. It is powerfully evocative of the beauty of nature, a soundtrack to the first buds of the first spring.

The second movement, Daniel Kidane’s Ruin, begins on a note of hope and optimism, not the desolation its name might suggest. But discordant notes soon begin to subtly enter the fray, leaving a sense of foreboding, of a paradise soon to be lost.

Unlike the previous two movements, Shirley Thompson’s Recovery blasts out its main motif from the start, strings echoing the vivid themes of the brass. Inspired by the relief efforts following the 2019 floods in Kenya, it is a bold testament to the power of solidarity to overcome adversity.

The finale, Roderick Williams’ Redemption recalls elements of each of the earlier movements, but with a more reflective feel, as an elder looking back on his life, before reaching its grand, triumphant epiphany.

A late addition to the programme – Dawn, by the 16-year-old Afghan cellist Meena Karimi, written to “share the message that girls and women in Afghanistan are strong.” It is a piece of great musical and emotional sophistication, in which warm strings give way to a sparse and haunting cello lament, before being soothed by tender, melancholic, cinematic sweeps, and ultimately transforming into a rousing and triumphant denouement.

The final two pieces are more traditional classical fare – Joseph Bologne’s Violin Concerto No 9 and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 1 in G minor. Here Chineke! prove that their willingness to experiment is not at the expense of a complete mastery of the classics, and the playing is phenomenal.

Further concerts November 25 2021, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Box office 08703 800 400 and Chineke Chamber Ensemble November 7 2021 at Kings Place London, Box Office (020) 7520 1490.