The Choral Pilgrimage 2026: Newbury

Hear us sing

Spotify

Overview

Ticket Prices: £30 - £35

Booking opens: 10 February at 11am

Access Information

The public area in Douai Abbey Church is on one level and is suitable for wheelchair access.

Booking opens

Newbury Festival Friends – 28 January 2026
General public – 10 February 2026

A programme exploring majestic music from the Spanish Renaissance alongside spellbinding works from James MacMillan and Kerensa Briggs.

Spain’s Siglo de Oro, the Age of Gold, gave rise to some of the greatest sacred choral music of the Renaissance. We devote our latest Choral Pilgrimage to pieces by two outstanding Spanish composers, exploring majestic works by Cristóbal de Morales, famed throughout Europe and in the New World, and the exquisite polyphony of Sebastián de Vivánco, whose intricately crafted counterpoint adorned services at the cathedrals of Ávila and Salamanca during the late 1500s.

Our programme also features spellbinding settings of words by Saint John Henry Newman: Sir James MacMillan’s Nothing in Vain for soloists and double choir and the world premiere of Kerensa Briggs’ Lead, Kindly Light, specially commissioned for the Choral Pilgrimage.

The Choral Pilgrimage 2026: Lead, Kindly Light

Find out more

PROGRAMME

Vivanco
Christus factus est pro nobis
Morales
Emendemus in Melius
Vivanco
Assumpta est Maria
Morales
Gaude et laetare Ferrariensis civitas
Kerensa Briggs
Lead, kindly light (new commission)
Vivanco
Magnificat Octavi toni
Morales
Jubilate Deo omnis terra
Vivanco
O quam suavis est, Domine
Morales
Exaltata est sancta Dei Genitrix
Morales
Lamentabatur Jacob
Vivanco
Caritas Pater est
James MacMillan
Nothing in vain (Commissioned in 2021 by the Genesis Foundation for Harry Christophers and The Sixteen)