spicer gets antipodean premiere

when I was recently back in Australia, I chanced across the current brochure for the Sydney Philharmonia Choir in their rehearsal rooms and found within that the Australian premiere of Paul Spicer's Easter Oratorio taking place this Saturday 11 April at the Sydney Opera House.
Paul Spicer, my predecessor's predecessor, who still lives and works close to the Festival Office, wrote the work with Tom Wright, the then Dean of Lichfield Cathedral, to mark the Millennium, the 250th anniversary of JS Bach's death and the 1300th anniversary of Lichfield Cathedral's founding. It received its world premiere on 15 July 2000, the final night of that year's Lichfield Festival, and has gone on to have a very strong presence within the UK. It is wonderful that a Lichfield Festival work has been picked up out of the blue by another country. A recording can be purchased here if you are interested in hearing it.