SANSARA

Transformational choral experiences

"choral singing with real depth" - The Observer

Our latest release (19.08.22), A Quiet Night - Tyhohi Nochi, is a creative response to the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces in early 2022 and the ongoing conflict across the country. Written by Ukrainian composer Natalia Tsupryk, the piece sets text by renowned Ukrainian poet Serhiy Zhadan and quotations from one of President Volodymyr Zelensky

’s many powerful speeches. Natalia’s new piece is a musical expression of solidarity with the people of Ukraine as they continue to suffer at the hands of Vladimir Putin: it is also a catalyst for connection, providing a creative vehicle for choirs to meet and sing with all those displaced by conflict in their communities. In addition to raising money for the Ukrainian Welcome Centre, it is our hope that choirs around the world - amateur and professional - will learn and perform this new work, creating spaces of sanctuary and refuge to facilitate genuine moments of human connection.

22/05/2026

Introducing Chronicle 时•录

We are thrilled to announce a new interdisciplinary choral-theatre work by Alex Ho and Rockey Sun Keting , tracing the voices of six women poets across a millennium of Chinese history.

Through war, exile, love, loss and displacement, their poems record not only personal emotion, but the fragile continuity of culture, memory and survival.

World music premiere at the 77th Aldeburgh Festival :
🗓️ Friday 19 June 2026, 4pm
📍 Britten Studio, Snape Maltings

London premieres , 30 & 31 August (save the dates).

Performed by SANSARA
Conducted by Tom Herring

Created by Tangram
Alex Ho – composer, director
Rockey Sun Keting – composer, director
Ke Peng – set + visual designer
Chang Meng – visual designer
Claudia Huang – producer

Original poetry translations by Yilin Wang
Additional text and dramaturgy by Tangram / Alex Ho and Rockey Sun Keting

Co-commissioned by SANSARA and , with support from , , The Radcliffe Trust, The Leche Trust, Vaughan Williams Foundation, Cockayne Grants for the Arts 🙏

More soon 👀

📸

21/04/2026

Join us for an evening of sanctuary & solidarity ✨

SAT 25 APRIL // Reading Minster // 6pm

Raising money for Refugee Support Group 🧡

Book now via link in our bio 👉

Featuring
Ruby Hughes

Kryla Ukrainian Choir

Music by

And speakers with lived experience from

30/03/2026

We

Join us at Reading Minster on Saturday 25 April and help raise funds for Reading’s Refugee Support Group 🙏

We’ll be sharing the stage with special guests Ruby Hughes, and with music by 🎶

Also featuring Reading’s Ukrainian choir Kryla and joint performances with singers from the local community ✨

Book now via the link on our profile 🎟️

05/11/2025

We’re thrilled to announce the appointment of .stevenson.90 as our first ever Executive Director 🥳🚀

With a deep commitment to choral music and the broader arts sector, Sonia has brought both heart and strategic insight to her many leadership roles. Her experience spans founding St Andrews Voices (Scotland’s festival of choral and vocal music), creating a new form of arts philanthropy through Music Patron, leading Lichfield Festival and chairing the British Arts Festivals Association.

“My work is anchored in the belief that the arts transform lives and strengthen connection. SANSARA’s vision exemplifies this in a truly unique way: using singing and choral music to explore topics of grief, political resistance and the displacement of people. As Executive Director, I seek build on this important legacy, deepening and widening SANSARA’s scope to reach new audiences, build new partnerships and, ultimately, use the primal force of the human voice to move, challenge, console.” - Sonia Stevenson

04/11/2025

Choir + vibraphone = 😇

Here’s talking about the vibraphone part in our version of ‘Peace on Earth’ by 🎶

For us, this short work asks the question: is peace possible?

We recorded this hauntingly beautiful track last year for and it’ll soon be released on all streaming platforms

Listen where you get your music from 07.11.25 (/head over to Apple Music now 🎧)

🎥
🎙️ .ewens
🦓

28/10/2025

Lower voice magic ✨

Here’s a clip from Rudolf Mauersberger’s stunning ‘Herr, lehre doch mich’ 🎶

We sing this as part of our Traces of the White Rose programme, combining powerful choral music with readings from the letters, diary entries and pamphlets of the White Rose resistance movement 🤍

Hear it live on Friday 7 Nov 👀

17/09/2025

Flashback to 2019 ⏮️

We’re throwing it back with this archive rehearsal clip ahead of our concert on Sunday 5 Oct 🎶

This piece by Bengt Ollén opens our Northern Rites programme which explores themes of love, loss and homecoming through music by Scandinavian and British composers.

Tickets available via our website / from The Cumnock Tryst 🔗

05/09/2025

is OUT NOW 🤩

Our celebration of Arvo Pärt is available on all streaming platforms ahead of the composer’s 90th birthday on 11 September 🥳

Here’s a clip from Pärt’s ‘Nunc dimittis’ featuring soprano soloist ✨

The album also features collaborators and a guest solo appearance from 🙌

Here’s an excerpt from John Potter’s sleeve notes (full booklet available when you buy the album on iTunes):

“It has been Pärt’s remarkable and enduring achievement to use rigorously objective mathematical constructions to create the most sublime music, the purity of the maths morphing into the purity of the music.

Of course, nobody listens to Pärt’s music to hear the mathematics that underpins it; the complex algorithmic calculation creates a mysterious alchemy that seems to exist outside the mundane parameters of time and place.

His works are often described as timeless, and there is probably no other composer for whom this is actually true.”

🎶
🎙️ .ewens
🎥
🦓

04/09/2025

Arvo Pärt’s music has always been part of SANSARA’s story…

Since our very first concert back in December 2013, Pärt 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 (pictured here with Artistic Director Tom Herring and former Associate Conductor Benjamin Cunningham).

Their kind and encouraging words about our interpretations inspired us to keep exploring his music and our latest recording project is the culmination of that exploration.

This album is built on our ongoing collaboration with 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 ca****la 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.

- , Artistic Director

sublime calculations is available on all streaming platforms from 05.09.25 🎶

01/09/2025

WE’RE HIRING 📣

Are you ready for a new challenge?

We’re looking for a visionary arts leader to become our first-ever Executive Director 🤗

This new role will sit alongside our Co-Founder and Artistic Director , helping to shape our future and lead us into our next chapter 🚀

✅ Part-time
✅ Flexible
✅ Remote

🗓️ Applications close on Sunday 5 October

Find out more by heading to the ‘work with us’ page on our website (link on our page) 🤓

Address

Cumnock

Website

http://www.sansarachoir.com/

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