Extremely excited to announce the launch of New Paths Music, a new festival of song and chamber music taking place in Beverley, Yorkshire, in April 2016. Have a look at our website, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, put our dates in your diaries, and get ready to buy your tickets when they go on sale in January!
Thrilled to announce two brand new one-day courses, in November and January, for professional and training singers. Led alongside director Joe Austin, the workshops will focus on the development of character in arias, and how this plays out in musical and dramatic terms. Joe and Libby have worked together as Director and Musical Director for five years, on productions ranging from Britten’s The Prodigal Son and Mendelssohn’s The Homecoming for Ryedale Festival Opera to new work by Stephen McNeff at Tête à Tête Festival and the Linbury Studio. They regularly coach together and have run a residential course focussing on similar work. Details are available at Workshop Opera; do spread the word, and apply!
Back from an inspiring summer playing for various summer festivals – such a rich and important part of the British musical calendar. From the rural and picturesque Etchingham Festival – playing Brahms, Bridge and Schumann piano quartets with the Wieck Ensemble – to the heart of the City of London with St Lawrence Jewry Summer Music Festival – piano duets of Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven with Sholto Kynoch; from the long-established Dartington – Mozart, Berkeley and Poulenc music for winds and piano with the Berkeley Ensemble – to the new kid on the block, Southwell Music Festival, featuring a Schubertiade with Alison Rose, Nick Pritchard, and festival director Marcus Farnsworth, and then, perhaps the summer’s highlight, the Rite of Spring in its duet form with James Baillieu (lots of feedback, live commenting and photos available on their Twitter page, @Southwell_Music). Festivals are such a key chance for musicians to gather in different places, be inspired by their surroundings, their colleagues, and above all, the music. Thank you to those who make them happen!
Happy to be guest conducting the Petros Singers next term for their autumn rehearsal season and their Christmas Concert. Having previously undertaken similar projects with the Renaissance Singers and the Nonsuch Singers, it proves to be a rewarding way of working with new choirs! Full programme details to be announced in due course.
Excited to be taking part in a series of concerts in Canterbury in the autumn and winter, under the umbrella of CantiaQuorum. CantiaQuorum was recently set up by trumpeter Alex Caldon, and prides itself on electrifying interpretations, audacious programming and world-class performers. It is the resident ensemble at the University of Kent, where the concerts take place in the Colyer-Fergusson Hall. Particularly looking forward to playing Shostakovich’s first piano concerto (for piano, trumpet and strings) in November!
Delighted with the www.libbyburgess.com redesign, by the ever-brilliant Tom King. Have a look at the various new pages, the additional pictures and clips, the more detailed events listings, and enjoy the more up-to-date look.
What fun to be part of the new Thames Valley branch of the well-established Bach to Baby concert series. These concerts present high-quality music to pre-school children and their parents, in a relaxed atmosphere – dancing, exploring and crying are definitely part of the package!
Have a look at the photo albums of the Windsor and Henley concerts event here and here.
Complimentary 4* review from the Daily Telegraph for the Lennox Berkeley disc recorded with the Berkeley Ensemble in the autumn. The repertoire includes the atmospheric Sonatine for clarinet and piano, not previously performed since the 1930s!
Geoffrey Norris writes of ‘the high quality of the performances by the Berkeley Ensemble, a malleable group which, like the Nash Ensemble, can adapt itself to different formats and plays as if it were truly inside the music.’ See the full review here.
Paul Driver in The Sunday Times writes, ‘outstanding in the exuberantly performed sequence are the expressive central adagio of the Op 19 String Trio and the 1971 Introduction and Allegro for double bass (Lachlan Radford) and piano (Libby Burgess)’. Here is the full review:
Berkeley Ensemble Sunday Times review
Wonderful to play for Alice Farnham’s brilliant Women Conductors @ Morley College project yesterday – a project which has really stepped up to fill a need, and is doing it inspirationally! A treat to be in Oxford, as ever.