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We offer daily services and a cultural programme of talks, events and concerts. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate
Under the theme ‘Imagine the World to be Different’, our garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show encourages visitors to cherish the earth and one another.
St James’s hosts inclusive services and a cultural programme. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
St James’s is a place to explore, reflect, pray, and support all who are in need. We are a Church of England parish in the Anglican Communion. This is a place for everyone who’s wondering about life’s big questions and striving for a better world.
We host a year-round cultural programme encompassing music, visual art and spoken word, drawing on St James’s rich cultural history including artists, writers and musicians Mary Beale, Mary Delany, William Blake, Ottobah Cugoano and Leopold Stokowski.
We try to put our faith into action by educating ourselves and speaking out on issues of injustice, especially concerning refugees, asylum, earth and racial justice, and LGBTQ+ issues.
We aspire to be a home where everyone can belong. We’re known locally and globally for our unique history and beauty, as well as faith in action, creativity and the arts, and a commitment to social and environmental justice.
We strive to be a Eucharist-centred, diverse and inclusive Christian community promoting life in abundance, wellbeing and dignity for all.
St James’s Piccadilly has been at the heart of its community since 1684. We invite you to play your part in securing this historic place for generations to come.
It costs us £3,500 per day to enable us to keep our door open to all who need us
We know that spiritual sustenance comes in many forms: we hope you enjoy this one. £12 from the sale of each bottle will go directly to St James’s, Charity No. 1133048
St James's Church 197 Piccadilly London W1J 9LL
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Duncan Fraser, composer & musician, talks about his upcoming score for Be Loved: A Passion which will premiere at St James’s Piccadilly in April 2022.
Why, in heaven and on earth, would anyone venture to write yet another setting of the passion story when so many great composers from Bach to Penderecki have done such a brilliant job before?
I have always been fascinated by that arc from Lent (and I wrote 40 piano pieces about Lent, premiered at St James’s 3 years ago) through to Easter day. What was it really like? What happened that the crowd who, on a Sunday were shouting ‘Hosanna!’, only 5 days later, were screaming ‘Crucify!’? What was actually going on for the individuals?
What really fascinated me though was what was going on for the many women that are mostly only alluded to in the story. Where were they? Making or buying bread for the last supper? What did they feel about how they were being treated?
Then, in 2021, I read some truly moving Easter poetry by Rev Laura Darrall and had the mad idea we might be able to make a piece out of this. Laura and I talked a lot, thought, reflected, read and structured but she was unable to see it through due to the huge commitments of being a new curate.
So I approached the Scottish poet Elspeth Murray and we continued the journey, from lists of which women were where when and from initial thoughts, through to research and collaboration to libretto. So began the most wonderful partnership of discovery and exploration.
How on earth could we tell what was the lived experience of these women when we were separated by so much time, distance and culture and most importantly how could I as a man try to represent them especially when we are all working so hard to challenge male privilege? Was it just too presumptuous? Yet why should the gender be more important than the other differences and how could we best live and work through that as we made the work?
We learned so much about Mary Magdalene which was revelatory: the fact that she was probably the lead disciple, (possibly funding them from the rental from properties her father had left her), the fact that she received the ‘vision’ on Easter Day in what some have described as a post-mortem vision (the way we often see loved ones after they have passed), to the fact that her beautiful gospel (The Gospel of the Beloved Companion) was so compelling and the wonderful idea that she had direct line to a vision that was about us all becoming the best we could be (is that what heaven really is?) rather than the view of some of the other disciples that it was simply the overthrow of the Romans. The men were threatened and wanted to write her out of the story but by the time they came to write their gospels had to respect the oral tradition that had grown up around her. It didn’t stop them using the old line ‘well she’s mad’ or through mistranslation ‘she’s a sex worker’ again emphasising the apparent separation of physical and ethereal.
I have always been fascinated at the differences between the way a pregnant 17 year old girl must have reacted physically to the birth and death of her son and the way she has been painted and worshipped, often by men, as ethereal, a virgin, Queen of heaven and especially as a musician I am fascinated by the distancing of the reality of the shock of the Annunciation as painted by so many anaemic Anglican settings of the text.
These ideas were captured so well first by Laura who wrote about how Mary became ‘sacred by a simple yes’ and Elspeth’s brilliant lines, which you will hear throughout:
I am scared I am scarred I am sacred
So we knew we wanted the two main women characters and also wanted to challenge the centuries old tradition of a male narrator. I also wanted to represent in the instruments what was going on internally, in as much as we could guess.
Musically a chord fell under my fingers, then three more, then a melody, then it is no exaggeration to say that it mostly write itself. Maybe Mary and Mary Magdalene liked what Elspeth and I were trying to do! We have entered into this mad task with humility and grace in the hope it goes a fractional way to exploring a new aspect of the Passion story.
May you be well May you be loved May you be good companions
See you at the performance
©Duncan Fraser
