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Choir of the Earth Events invites Choir of the Earth members and events attendees to enjoy this concert, live from Church of the Ascension in Warrington, England on Thursday 28 May 2026, from approximately 15:45 UTC+1 (UK time). *
THE PROGRAMME
If Ye Love Me
Thomas Tallis
Miserere
Gregorio Allegri
Let My Prayer Arise
Pavel Chesnokov, arr. Richard Gowers
Song for Athene
John Tavener
MLK
U2, arr. Bob Chilcott
The Blue Bird
Charles Villiers Stanford
Please note, the running order of the performance may vary
The Choir
Your Choir for this performance are the wonderful participants in our Warrington Come and Sing A Cappella Wonders event. They have been rehearsing independently online using our fantastic choral resources, and came together in person on the morning of 28 May 2026 to sing together for the first time. They spent the day workshopping these pieces with conductor Ben England and will now perform them for an in-person and online audience, joined by soprano soloist, Rosa Sparks.
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Ben England is an internationally renowned conductor, educator, and innovator who has received worldwide recognition for his pioneering work in the field of digital music-making.
He is the Director of the Earth Choir Academy, a newly founded non-profit organisation dedicated to building and promoting the choral repertoire through excellent teaching and musical collaboration. Ben is the founder of Homechoir - a new way of learning, singing, and performing music safely and enjoyably, particularly during the time of social distancing.
In October 2020, Ben was awarded the British Empire Medal in the Birthday Honours of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II - as one of 400 “heroes” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, Ben has been nominated for and received numerous awards, including recognition from the Royal Philharmonic Society in December 2020, the “Kantele of the Year” award from the Finnish Kantele Association Kanteleliitto, a nomination for the “Inspiration Award” at the 2022 Music and Drama Education Awards, and the University of Bristol Alumni Award for Community Engagement and Impact in 2022. In 2023, Eric Whitacre named Ben his “Teacher of the Week.”
He is also co-founder of Choir of the Earth, an online choir with thousands of members, which has become one of the largest and most successful choirs in the world. Its first project, Messiah at Home, was realised together with some of the world’s leading musicians such as Laurence Cummings, Carolyn Sampson, and Jennifer Johnston, and attracted international attention. Messiah at Home was featured on BBC Evening News, across all BBC radio stations, on NHK (Japan), CBS (USA), and many other outlets - and has since become part of the official Wikipedia article on Messiah.
The choir has recorded major works such as Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Mozart’s Requiem, and Allegri’s Miserere - in collaboration with the world-famous choir Tenebrae under the direction of Nigel Short.
In December 2020, Ben conducted the choir in the world premiere of Still, Still the Night by Patrick Hawes, and their performance of Hawes’ Quanta Qualia was broadcast on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4.
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British soprano Rosa Sparks is studying at the Royal Northern College of Music, where she is completing her Postgraduate Diploma under the tutelage of Elizabeth Ritchie. During her studies at the RNCM, Rosa won the prestigious Frederic Cox Award for Singing competition, and received the Dame Eva Turner Award.
Rosa’s recent operatic engagements include: Emmie in Britten’s Albert Herring (Opera North) Aloès in Chabrier’s L'étoile (RNCM) and Lucilla in Rossini’s La Scala di Seta for (RNCM). Other opera roles include: Yum-Yum, The Mikado (Opera Anywhere), First Lady and Papagena, The Magic Flute (Opera Anywhere), Belinda, Dido and Aeneas (Opera Sparks), Miss Havisham, Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night (Light’s On Theatre), and Chorus in Cherry Town Moscow (Welsh National Opera Young Company).
Rosa has a particular interest in contemporary music, and has created the leading roles of ‘The Soprano’ in Interrupted (a modern comedic opera which premiered at the Cardiff Atmospheres Festival), and ‘The Journalist’ in Silverwood (Manchester Community Opera).
Rosa is also a member of RNCM Songsters and performed in the Street Chorus for the RNCM’s fiftieth Anniversary production of Bernstein’s Mass. In 2022 she won the John Ireland Song Prize, administered by the John Ireland Trust.
Recent solo oratorio work includes Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Ascension Oratorio, Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate, and Schubert’s Mass in A♭.
This livestream is offered to members and event attendees at no cost, though as a non-profit organisation we would of course welcome donations of any size to help us keep bringing music to our global community both in person and online:
* All times are approximate. Every effort will be made to proceed with the livestream as planned. However, in the event of technical difficulties, such as poor streaming quality or unforeseen IT issues, a decision may be taken to record the concert and screen it the following day. We will keep the information on this page up to date. If you have difficulty connecting to the stream at the published time, you may wish to refresh your browser window to update the page/link.