Tallis Festival Tallis Festival The Tallis Festival, hosted by Exmoor Singers of London, forms the Tallis Festival Choir for just one weekend every 12 to 18 months. The Festival always includes Thomas Tallis' Spem in Alium for 40-part choir, but in addition has commissioned new 40-part works by modern composers, as companion pieces to Spem in Alium. In 2007 the Festival was recognised by the BBC for its contribution to new music and highlights from the Festival were broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 28 October 2007. The Festival originated from "Tallis Performance Weekends", held periodically over a number of years. The
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis the piece into third place on the station's "Hall of Fame", an annual poll of the most popular classical music works. The piece was used, in part, in the 2003 film "" directed by Peter Weir. The rising, organ-like melody is used to sombre effect when one of the crew of HMS "Surprise" is cut adrift after falling overboard and is swept away during a storm. Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, also known as the Tallis Fantasia, is a work for string orchestra by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. It