Ben Rowarth ​’s The Fall premieres on 3 July at Wigmore Hall with Siglo De Oro, Amy Tress (violin), and Joe Bates (electronics). This 45 minute secular oratorio was commissioned by Patrick Allies and Siglo De Oro.

The Fall sets the story of the Trojan War, as told in a libretto by writer and film-director Sophia Carr Gomm. The music pushes the boundaries of contemporary choral writing by mixing onstage choir and solo violin with offstage electronics: pre-recorded strings, vocals, and natural sounds that weave together to bring this famous Greek myth to life in vivid musical colour.

Ben Rowarth explains “…we have chosen to tell this story from the perspective of Cassandra: priestess, princess and prophetess of Troy [so we can] draw a direct parallel to the modern world. In 2025 it is now commonplace to hear public rhetoric that attacks ​‘experts’, academics or scientists — those whose job it is to spend their time and intellect analysing patterns in the world around us in order to try and accurately predict what might happen next.”