Gathering together texts on the theme of peace and liberty, Invictus is a new 50-minute cantata by Morgan Pochin, scored for youth choir, SATB chorus and orchestra. It's the result of a commission from Brighton Festival Chorus and Brighton Festival Youth Choir, to mark the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, and launched in the Brighton Dome on 11 June. Both choirs were joined by a massed choir of local schoolchildren, and were accompanied by the City of London Sinfonia under James Morgan.
The texts of Invictus are drawn from a host of authors, including Thomas Paine, Emily Dickinson, John Dryden, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and includes William Ernest Henley's renowned poem 'Invictus', before culminating in 'Oh Freedom', a rousing setting of the post-Civil War African-American freedom song (made famous by Joan Baez and many others).