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Dateline: 8th June, 2007

Nitro to Revive Mass Carib

Marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transantlantic slave trade, Nitro, Britain’s leading black music theatre company, is to stage a new site-specific revival of Mass Carib to commemorate the victims of slavery. A symbolic torch-lit Mass staged in the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College, Mass Carib provides a powerful and moving finale to this year’s Greenwich & Docklands International Festival. Composed and directed by Felix Cross, Artistic Director of Nitro, this epic choral spectacle will be performed in Greenwich on Sunday 24 June at 9.30pm, free to the public.

Staged against the magnificent backdrop of Christopher Wren’s Old Royal Naval College, under the flickering glow of torch flames, this open-air production unites a large company of twenty singers and eight musicians in an emotionally-charged processional performance. Composer Felix Cross has drawn on music from West Africa, 18th Century European courts and the Caribbean to create an original choral work that uses the liturgical form of the full Catholic Mass - beginning with the Penitential Rite through to the Agnus Dei.

Nitro’s Mass Carib was originally staged in 1987 at the Albany Empire in Deptford, where it successfully transferred to the South Bank Centre followed by a major national tour. In 2006, the Mayor of London invited Nitro to stage extracts from Mass Carib in a specially commissioned new open-air production for the opening weekend at the Mayor’s Festival in Trafalgar Square. This summer’s site-specific
production at Greenwich marking Abolition 200 presents a full choral staging of the work. Under the Artistic Direction of Felix Cross, Nitro collaborates with leading and emerging black artists and performers to create and tour new theatre productions that explore the contemporary British experience from a black perspective. Combining new writing, original music, drama and dance, Nitro’s productions celebrate black music, inspired and driven by a wealth of styles from jazz, hip-hop reggae, calypso, salsa and soul to contemporary opera. Recent past productions include The Wedding Dance, Slamdunk, Passports to the Promised Land, and A Nitro at the Opera.

Mass Carib is composed and directed by Felix Cross with a strong company of singer-performers including: Debra Michaels, Jordene Thomas, Angela Caesar, Annabelle Williams, Abigail Kelly, Denise Pitter, Hyacinth Nicholls, Sandra Marvin, Lisa Davina Phillips, Emi Wokoma, Beejaye Joseph, Brian Green, Glen Hill, Ronnie Samm, Wills Morgan, Bruce Johnson, Celestine Joseph, Trevor Touissant, Julian Cannonier, Nolan Frederick. Musicians include international award-winning pianist Alex Wilson, Justin Pickett, Emeris Solis, Armando Rivas, Joseph Roberts, Alfred Banneman.

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©Peter Lathan 2007