new album out now
Our new album sublime calculations is now available on all streaming platforms.
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“I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence comforts me.”
The story behind the music
As we celebrate Arvo Pärt’s 90th birthday in 2025, he remains one of the world’s most performed living composers. Pärt’s music has always been part of SANSARA’s story. Since our very first concert back in December 2013, his music has been a regular feature of our programmes, always bringing a point of contrast and conjuring spell-binding atmospheres.
In 2016, we had the privilege of performing Pärt’s music to the composer himself and his wife Nora. Their kind and encouraging words about our interpretations inspired us to keep exploring Pärt’s music and this recording project is the culmination of that exploration.
Arvo and Nora Pärt with SANSARA’s Artistic Director Tom Herring and former Associate Conductor Benjamin Cunningham, 2016.
This album is built on our ongoing collaboration with the viol consort Fretwork which began in 2022 with a tour built around Pärt’s Stabat Mater.
The decision to record this programme was not an easy one: there are plenty of fantastic recordings of Pärt’s music. But the combination of viols and voices brought something unique to our approach and so - with Pärt’s permission - we have recorded our versions of Stabat Mater and Da pacem Domine, alongside some of Pärt’s well-known a cappella works and Fretwork’s signature arrangements of Fratres and Summa.
Our title ‘sublime calculations’ refers to Pärt’s signature musical language - tintinnabuli - and his idea that “the way to the most intense concentration on the essence of things” is found through reduction.
For Pärt, reaching beyond the everyday in search of the infinite is possible only through reducing his musical form to a raw simplicity.
This process of distillation to find a place of inner peace is surely one of the reasons why Pärt’s music has such broad appeal: it is an invitation to discover a personal feeling of belonging which is at once individual and universal. We are always making decisions or forming opinions based on our own calculations. Pärt’s music encourages us to search for the island within, the sublime home of our shared humanity.
- Tom Herring
