Monday, August 24, 2026 • 1 PM

Listening Lounge: Vaughan Williams

Michael Gerdes hosts a guided listening series for curious concertgoers who want to expand how they hear music. Each session examines a single work, exploring how a piece is built, what to listen for as it unfolds, and how different performers bring contrasting perspectives to the same notes.

By comparing interpretations and considering changes in performance practice throughout history, we’ll begin to listen to music the way one might taste fine wine: attentively, thoughtfully, and with a growing vocabulary.

Registration Required.

Composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams for the Gloucester Festival in 1910 and premièred in the city’s cathedral, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis divides the performers into three groups: a string quartet, a large string orchestra, and a small string orchestra of nine players that Vaughan Williams asks be set some distance away from the other players. This separation gives the work a special sound that enhances its seemingly endless beauty and transportive effect.

Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis will be performed on Friday, August 28.

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