The Choral Pilgrimage 2026: Truro

The music of the Spanish Renaissance is the focus of this year’s tour, ‘Lead, Kindly Light’. From sadness to great rejoicing, the wealth of emotion of these times is captured beautifully in selected works by Cristóbal de Morales and Sebastián de Vivanco. This year’s tour takes its title from a poem by Saint John Henry Newman – a personal plea for divine guidance during times of uncertainty and personal crisis. Kerensa Briggs explores these emotions in her piece specially commissioned for this year’s tour, complemented by James MacMillan’s emotive setting of Newman’s words ‘Nothing in Vain.’ Spain’s Siglo de Oro, the Age of Gold, gave rise to some of the greatest sacred choral music of the Renaissance. The range of emotion covered by composers in the Spanish Renaissance is demonstrated beautifully in the selected works by Cristóbal de Morales and Sebastián de Vivanco that form the basis of this Choral Pilgrimage: Lead, Kindly Light.