Friday 10 October 2025, 1:00PM - 2:00PM
St James's Church Sussex Gardens, London
Flautist Lara Ali and guitarist Goi Ywei Chern will perform a varied programme including a new movement of Goi's piece Qart Hadasht.
More information here.
Jacques Ibert
Entr'acte
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Distribuição de flores
Bachianas brasileiras No.5
Johann Sebastian Bach
Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ
BWV 639 (Arr. Goi)
Traditional
Dayung Sampan (Arr. Goi)
Goi Ywei Chern
Qart Hadasht
IV. Tophet (World Premiere)
V. Megara
The movements of this piece are named after various locations within the ancient city after which this piece is named - Qart Hadasht, meaning New City, in the punic tongue, better known in modern times by the anglicised version of its Greek and Roman name - Carthage.
The Tophet was the site at which human child sacrifices took place during times of great calamity. According to Plutarch, "The Carthaginians offered their children with full awareness and knowledge, and those who had none bought those of the poor like lambs or young birds, while the mother stood by without tears or moaning. If she moaned or cried, she was to lose the sale price, and the child was still sacrificed; however, the whole space in front of the statue was filled with the sound of flutes and drums, so that the cries could not be heard."
The Megara was a district described by Appian as "planted with gardens and full of fruit-bearing trees divided off by low walls, hedges, and brambles, besides deep ditches full of water running in every direction".
Goi Ywei Chern, 2025
Tōru Takemitsu
Toward the Sea
I. The Night
II. Moby-Dick
III. Cape Cod
Ástor Piazzolla
Oblivion
instagram - @lara.aisha.flute
Lara Aisha Ali is a Nigerian-German classical flautist. She is based in London, studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and performing with Guildhall Orchestras in the Barbican Centre. Her studies at GSMD thus far have led to her being awarded the Guildhall Flute Prize 2024 and becoming a Liverpool International Flute Competition semi-finalist in the same year. Lara has been performing across London playing various genres, developing a holistic, creative musical identity and networking with up and coming artists. She is driven by community and collaboration, which fuels her passion for chamber music as well as leading workshops. Lara’s musical voice is formed by improvisation and contemporary music, and her anthropological perspectives on music are forming a path toward further studies in ethnomusicology.
instagram - @goiyweichern
website - www.goiyweichern.com
Goi Ywei Chern (b. 1996) is a Singaporean composer and guitarist currently based in London. He is undertaking a DMus (Composition Route) in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama under the supervision of Professors Richard Baker, Matt Kaner, and Julian Anderson.
In 2025, his opera Medusa, composed with a libretto by Jess McNulty, was premiered in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London.
Goi has taken part in numerous performances and competitions, winning the 11th International Antonin Dvorak Composition Competition (Senior Category) in 2023 and the Leong Yoon Pin Composition Competition in 2016. His compositions have been performed in Singapore, London, Leeds, Bangkok, and Ayrshire.
He previously studied in the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) School of Music, receiving his Diploma in Music Performance in 2016 and NAFA-RCM Undergraduate degree (funded by the OCBC Local Undergraduate Scholarship) in 2019, and the Royal College of Music, where he achieved a Distinction in the Master of Music in Composition degree . He has studied the guitar under Manuel Cabrera II and Hunter Mah and composition under Dr Zechariah Goh, Professor Kenneth Hesketh, and Professor Alison Kay.
Goi participated in MusicFest Aberystwyth in 2019, and he was selected as one of eight composers to participate in The Cumnock Tryst International Summer-School for Composers 2024 under the guidance of Sir James MacMillan and Oscar Bettison, where his piece Charybdis for contrabass clarinet and string trio was performed on the Dumfries House estate. Also in 2024, his song, Letter from Heaven, composed for the Composers & Poets Forum Showcase: A Leeds Songbook in collaboration with poet Yvonne Ugarte, who wrote the lyrics, was performed in the Leeds Lieder Festival.
