The Grand Théâtre Opera Chorus offers a programme of sacred and spiritual choral music at the Geneva Cathedral, in tune with the spirit of Lent during which this concert will take place and as a foretaste of the continuation of our Russian cycle with Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. The main part of the concert is dedicated to the Estonian Arvo Pärt, who during his formative years under the Soviet regime was influenced by the then outlawed world of Russian Orthodox church music and other Christian traditions from the Latin West. Nikolai Golovanov’s Lord’s Prayer, all the more moving because it too was composed during the years of Stalinist religious persecution, will precede that monument of modern Russian church music, Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil (better known by the inaccurate name of Vespers). The great organ of Saint-Pierre will accompany Pärt’s works and Alan Woodbridge’s choristers will tune the vaults with the choral piece that was the favourite, among all his compositions, of this poet of the piano.