For our final program of 2025, Van Diemen’s Band performs old and new works centred around Vivaldi’s beloved Gloria (RV5889), featuring TYO Tasmanian Youth Chorale and Crescendo Choirs.

For two centuries after his death, Vivaldi’s Gloria lay forgotten, until it was found buried among a pile of manuscripts in the late 1920s. Today it is among his most famous choral works, setting the traditional Gloria from the Latin Mass in twelve varied cantata-like sections.

Vivaldi composed this Gloria in Venice, probably in 1715, for the choir of the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage for girls. A priest, music teacher and virtuoso violinist, Vivaldi composed many sacred works for the Ospedale, where he spent most of his career, as well as hundreds of instrumental concertos to be played by the girls’ orchestra.

This entrancing program also features the world premiere of a newly-commissioned work by Tasmanian composer Benjamin Raymond as well as works by Alice Chance and a recorder concerto by Sammartini featuring soloist Xavier Gandy.