National Portrait Gallery to Debut 'Surround-Sound' Choral Audio Guide, 10/14

The National Portrait Gallery will create the world's first museum permanent collection Choral Audio Guide, it was announced today, Monday 25 July 2016.

Launching on Friday 14 October 2016 with two special Gallery events, the Choral Audio Guide was recorded by The Portrait Choir, which is at the heart of the Gallery's Choir in Residence programme. The Choral Audio Guide was made possible with support from Gallery donors.

Narrated by actor Simon Russell Beale, the Audio Guide will illuminate portraits in the Gallery's permanent Collection by offering visitors the opportunity to hear the choral sounds of each time-period spanned by the portraits in its 500-year Collection. A specially commissioned narration will provide the context for each choral piece.

Starting with Tallis and Wilbye in the Tudor Galleries, and moving to Purcell and Handel in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century galleries; Mendelssohn and Sullivan in the Nineteenth; and Elgar, Britten and Tippett in the Twentieth; the Audio Guide will provide a unique soundtrack to five centuries of portraits.

The Choral Audio Guide is brought to the Contemporary Galleries with music including Tavener's The Lambfrom 1968 before ending right up to date with a specially commissioned choral piece Te Lucis ante terminum by composer James Burton. Burton's piece will set to music extracts from the National Portrait Gallery's Special Constabulary Report Book, from 1914-20, when the basement of the Gallery was used as a place of safe haven during the First World War London bombings.

To mark the launch of the Guide there will be a sound installation throughout the Gallery of tracks from the Choral Audio Guide as well as live pop-up performances by The Portrait Choir. Artistic Director Gregory Batsleer will discuss the Choral Audio Guide at an In Conversation event at the Gallery with BBC Radio 3 presenter Clemency Burton Hill.

The Audio Guide is being produced by Philip Hobbs of Linn Records and will be available to download online for £3.

Formed in 2013 The Portrait Choir is the National Portrait Gallery's Choir in Residence. The Portrait Choir commissions and performs at least one new work each year. Performing with up to 22 singers The Portrait Choir is made up of some of the UK's finest young professional singers.

Ms Pim Baxter, Deputy Director, National Portrait Gallery, London, says: 'Since The Portrait Choir was formed in 2013 we have heard a range of wonderful music being performed at the Gallery under Gregory's thoughtful and creative direction, including specially commissioned pieces composed around works in the Collection or special exhibitions. In the new Audio Guide we have captured a tangible example of the Portrait Choir which can not only be enjoyed by visitors to the Gallery but also much further afield.'