La Folia
Howard Moody is Artistic Director of La Folia, a music charity and production company that brings together instrumentalists, singers, actors, dancers, visual artists and writers to create new music, original projects and ground-breaking performances.
Evening Songs at Salisbury Cathedral
Students from Exeter House Special School, Wiltshire College and Salisbury Cathedral choristers devised their own words and music in response to the traditional Evensong liturgy - the first time the words had changed in 400 years. Directed by Howard Moody. More than 1,00 people attended these ground-breaking services at Salisbury Cathedral in 2016 and 2019. Image of Mark Padmore by Ash Mills, 2019
Continuing Songs recording project: Celebrate Life
Working alongside students on the Wiltshire College Foundation Studies Course, project artists Howard Moody, Adrian Zolotuhin, Jeff Moore, Colin Brown, Buster Birch and Ruby Moody devised and recorded an album together with the students. Strikingly original, this was launched at Salisbury Arts Centre in 2018. Image by Adrian Harris, 2018
Salisbury International Arts Festival: Alec Roth’s Earthrise
Alec Roth's beautiful choral work, inspired by the iconic 'Earthrise' photograph by Apollo astronaut William Anders, was performed as part of Salisbury International Arts Festival in 2019. Featuring the massed voices of the Festival Chorus and La Folia instrumentalists and singers under the musical direction of Howard Moody. Image by Ash Mills, 2019
PUSH in collaboration with Wiltshire Creative
Originally commissioned in 2016 by Battle Festival in co-production with Glyndebourne, PUSH is an opera written by Howard Moody telling the extraordinary story of Simon Gronowski (pictured above), who was pushed by his mother from a train bound for Auschwitz in 1943 and survived. PUSH was staged in Salisbury by the Festival Chorus and La Folia Ensemble under the musical direction of Howard Moody in 2018. Image of Simon Gronowski’s note to Howard Moody, Brussels, 2014
Magna Songs at Salisbury Cathedral
To mark the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta in 2105, a diverse team of artists, mixing Indian music and dance with original songs created during the project, worked with students from five special schools and their families to make a new ‘great charter’ of songs. Participants used music and dance to express their needs and human rights, culminating in a performance in Salisbury Cathedral. Image by Vipul Sangoi, 2015
Richard Chew’s Stari Most in Salisbury Cathedral
Richard Chew’s large-scale choral work takes its title from Bosnia's iconic Mostar Bridge, which was destroyed during the Balkan conflict and subsequently rebuilt and reopened in 2004. It now stands as a symbol of reconciliation and is a Unesco world heritage site. Originally commissioned for La Folia by Amery Hill School in 2005. Image by Sarah Flanaghan, 2008
Planet Three Eleven Thousand: workshops around Holst’s The Planets
‘One of the most important and significant things I’ve ever been a part of in this world of cathedral music.’ John Challenger (Assistant Director of Music, Salisbury Cathedral)
Since November, 2022, La Folia have been running workshops introducing students from Exeter House School and Salisbury Cathedral School to the wonderful new organ transcription by Salisbury Cathedral’s Assistant Director of Music, John Challenger, of Gustav Holst’s masterpiece The Planets. After nine workshops held from November 2022 to February 2023, the student’s have responded to Holst’s work, by creating their very own brand new musical planet Planet Three Eleven Thousand. Working with Martin Figura (poet), Howard Moody and La Folia musicians have introduced the students to three of Holst’s planets: Mars, Jupiter and Neptune, and in turn the students have responded with their own words and music. The grand finale, where all their hard work comes together, held in Salisbury Cathedral, will be when the students share their new planet with John Challenger, and he, in turn, will blow their socks off playing his organ transcription of Holst’s Mars, Jupiter and Neptune.
Header image by Adrian Harris, 2016