Benjamin Britten
WAR REQUIEM
HIROSHIMA 2025
It all began with an idea: to bring Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem to Hiroshima for the first time since the work’s premiere in 1962. Through the alchemy of piece and place, this 80th commemoration of the dropping of the atom bomb will resonate deeply with performers and audience alike. Bringing 145 singers from the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and throughout the UK together with the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra and NHK Children’s Choir, we will meld through this extraordinary music into one Voice for Peace.
BENJAMIN BRITTEN
WAR REQUIEM
Saturday 6th September, 2025
Phoenix Hall, Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima
Hiromi Omura ~ Soprano
James Gilchrist ~ Tenor
Roderick Williams ~ Baritone
Bournemouth Symphony Chorus
Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra
Hiroshima Children’s Choir
Gavin Carr ~ Conductor
INTRODUCTION
By Gavin Carr
Of all the great musical works born of the twentieth century, Britten’s War Requiem must rank with those
most aligned with the terrors and inhumanities of the era. Wilfred Owen’s haunting phrase, “My subject is
War, and the pity of War” is the emblem of the piece, and it was surely Owen’s profound sense of compassion
that inspired Britten, as he brought his great work together to commemorate the devastation of Coventry and
the rising from the ashes of a marvellous new cathedral.
Many years ago, the idea of this project came to me: to find a way to align the War Requiem with the meaning
that Hiroshima holds for all of us in the West, as a symbol both of man’s inhumanity to man, and of the power
of transformation through compassion and forgiveness. To bring this work to the very epicentre of the atomic
explosion, to the Peace Memorial Park itself, and there to make an act of atonement, literally at-one-ment, in
bringing all our energies together to perform this great work of compassion and humanity in the very heart of
Hiroshima…this was my idea, all those years ago.
Now the Hiroshima War Requiem project is coming to fruition. On Saturday 6th September, 2025, marking
eighty years since the dropping of the bomb, we will perform the work in the Phoenix Hall in the Peace
Memorial Park, with the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra and the Hiroshima Children’s Choir, under my
baton. Joining us will be an internationally celebrated cast of world-class soloists: Hiromi Omura (soprano),
James Gilchrist (tenor), and Roderick Williams (baritone). The choir will feature the renowned Bournemouth
Symphony Chorus, and a contingent of invited guest singers.
This brochure is our invitation to you to join us for this historic performance.
Read on for details of the tour, and how to sign up to it.