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 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 was composed in 1910 and performed for the first time on 10 September that year at Gloucester Cathedral for the Three Choirs Festival. Vaughan Williams himself conducted and the composition proved to be a major success. He revised the work twice, in 1913 and 1919. Performances generally run between 14 and 16 minutes. The work takes its name from the original composer of the melody, Thomas