CBSO Returns to Coventry Cathedral for Historic War Requiem Performance
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) is set to return to Coventry Cathedral for a landmark performance of Britten’s War Requiem next week. The orchestra will mark 50 years since the death of the piece’s composer, Benjamin Britten, with an anniversary concert on Remembrance Day (11 November). The performance takes place 64 years after the CBSO gave the world premiere of the War Requiem at the 1962 consecration ceremony for the New Coventry Cathedral, rebuilt next to the ruins of its predecessor, which was bombed during the Second World War. The message of this humanitarian masterpiece and its message – a plea for peace from British composer and lifelong pacifist Benjamin Britten – remains as relevant in today’s divided world as it was to the Cold War-scarred era for which it was written. The concert, and its timing around the National Day of Remembrance, offers a space to come together to reflect on today’s world – and the need for peace, tolerance and unity. Following the Coventry concert, Kazuki Yamada and the orchestra will give performances in Brussels, Luxembourg and Lucerne as part of a European tour. Commenting on the orchestra’s decision to include this piece in its broad-ranging 2026-27 programme, CBSO Chief Executive Emma Stenning said: “War Requiem is not a comfortable piece. It is, as Britten intended, a reflection on war and a cry for peace, and in many ways could not be more prescient, or more urgently needed from an orchestra right now. We are not staging it as an act of nostalgia. We are staging it because it demands to be heard.” The piece forms a cornerstone of an exciting new season for the CBSO, bookended by Mahler symphonies and featuring world premieres, the start of a full cycle of all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies, and a host of new partnerships with Collaborative Artists Alice Sara Ott, Jess Gillam, Rushil Ranjan and with the CBSO’s first Composer in Residence, Anna Clyne. Emma Stenning, Chief Executive, CBSO, adds: “With 2026 marking 50 years since Benjamin Britten's death, we were thinking about how we best acknowledge his extraordinary and enduring music legacy. It felt natural to stage the piece that CBSO originally premiered, that is so symbolic of the orchestra’s relationship with the West Midlands. We are Birmingham's orchestra, and we celebrate the creative identity of the Midlands as a whole. This kind of event, dominated by such a sense of place and history, reminds us that the big artistic statements don't just happen in London, Edinburgh or Cardiff, they happen all over the country".
