Archive for year: 2011
Music at St Peter’s – October
Details for October's concert in the Music at St Peter's series are confirmed – we will welcome Jeremy Kenyon (countertenor) in a programme of Purcell and Handel plus settings of Shakespeare texts through the ages; then we have James Turnbull (oboe) returning, joined by Clare Wheeler (violin) in Bach's double concerto for oboe and violin, with performances of Rubbra's beautiful oboe sonata and Vaughan Williams' ever-popular The Lark Ascending. This marks the beginning of the third season of this popular series at St Peter's Church, Ardingly, in West Sussex.
A Boy is Born: Christmas Music by Candlelight
The programme is settled for December’s concert with the Renaissance Singers, which it is a privilege to be guest conducting. 'A Boy is Born' is a sequence of Tudor and Jacobean music, moving from Advent to Christmas, combining the glories of Renaissance polyphony with the intricacies of Jacobean verse writing, the latter directed from the chamber organ. Looking forward to getting stuck in!
Summer festivals
This was a week of festival recitals – starting with the newly-founded Fringe in the Fen on Friday (Liebeslieder Walzer and a range of parlour music, with Runette Botha, Kate Symonds-Joy, Julian Forbes, Sam Queen and Will Vann), and then moving to both Oundle and Buxton Festivals (Brahms, Barber and Britten with Marcus Farnsworth). The week was rounded off with a programme of Scottish songs at the Garrick Club with Katie Bray – great to be back in their continuing series of songs from around the British Isles.
North Sea Vocal Academy
Every summer, remote north west Denmark becomes a hive of singing activity, as the annual North Sea Vocal Academy takes over the church music school in Vestervig and the farm at nearby Skibstedgaard for a series of week-long courses. Run by the indefatigable Peter Frost, the courses provide young singers and pianists the chance to escape from the hectic flurry of day-to-day professional life, and to focus on specific aspects of their performance and repertoire. As a third-time visitor to the courses, it was a joy to be back, working again with one of the country's very greatest vocal coaches, Audrey Hyland, and working on a diverse range of music with a lovely group of singers (Anna Huntley, Karolina Storm, Anna Louise Costello, Roberto Ortiz, Stuart Jackson, Sam Queen), preparing variously for competitions, auditions, roles and recordings.
Trossingen
This week saw a flying visit to Trossingen in southern Germany to play Mozart's Kegelstatt Trio along with Brahms' F minor Clarinet Sonata and Debussy's Première Rhapsody. Part of clarinetist John Slack's final masters assessment out there, this performance took place in the Hochschule's spacious concert hall. It was wonderful to work on the repertoire with the inspirational Chen Halevi beforehand, and to finally see this tiny but musically alive town, where so many colleagues have lived and studied!
Music at St Peter’s
Last night was a fantastic end to the second year of the Music at St Peter's series, with superb performances from the Hampden Quartet and from soprano Sara Lian Owen. The first half of the concert saw a programme of Welsh songs, ranging from Dilys Elwyn Edwards' Caneuon y Tri Aderyn, a beautiful cycle about birds, to more familiar folk songs and the sumptuous tunes of Ivor Novello! This was followed in the second half by Dvorak's Piano Quintet, a glorious highlight of the piano quintet repertoire, and such fun to play. Based at St Peter's Church in Ardingly, West Sussex, these concerts have developed a very loyal following; each works on the basis of bringing talented emerging professionals down from London to beautiful rural Mid Sussex, and each raises money for a different local cause. Looking back at the array of performers to date, it has been a hugely varied lineup: Alexandra and Charlotte Reid (violins), Alexandra Kidgell (soprano), James Turnbull (oboe), Carris Jones (mezzo-soprano), Lucia Siwy Capilla (violin), Peter Davoren (tenor), Fiona Slominska (flute), Sam Queen (baritone), Matthew Lowe (cello), Laura Kelly (mezzo-soprano), and then last night the Hampden Quartet (the return of the Reid sisters!) and Sara Lian Owen (soprano). What a pleasure to perform with all these people in such a beautiful setting, and to have raised money for Hands of Hope in Uganda, Family Support Work in Mid Sussex, Ardingly Old Jeshwang Association in the Gambia, Tearfund Pakistan Floods Appeal, St Peter's Church Centre Appeal, and St Peter and St James Hospice in Sussex. Here's to the next year of this series!
Renaissance Singers
Flattered to have been asked by the Renaissance Singers to be their Guest Conductor next term, while their regular conductor David Allinson settles into a new teaching post at Bristol University. Having played for the Renaissance Singers' excellent Christmas concert last year, it will be great to be at the helm this time round!
Kommilitonen! videos available
Documentary and extracts now available of RAO's Kommilitonen! première in March – click here to watch the documentary, or here to watch a clip of the Act 2 finale. Acting as chorusmaster on this brand new Peter Maxwell Davies / David Pountney collaboration was an extraordinary, and ultimately hugely rewarding, process!
A lot of notes!
After the intensive week of working with singers up at Samling, it has been back to chamber music in abundance for a couple of weeks! Last week saw a recital with flautist Thea Cramp (colleague on the visiting music staff at Eton) as part of the lunchtime series at Windsor Parish Church. Tomorrow will provide a pleasing excuse to visit Winchester (where I worked for my gap year), giving a concert for the Friends of the Cathedral's 80th anniversary with Alexandra and Charlotte Reid (violinists). As usual we are mixing up some staples of our repertoire (a Handel trio sonata, the Martinu Sonatine) with some new pieces (a vibrant Haydn sonata and the virtuosic Muskowski Suite) as well as taking the chance to revisit Jon Galton's The Awakening which we premiered last year. Meanwhile, time is also filled with rehearsing for Sunday's concert in Cambridge with cellist Cara Berridge (Schumann and Rachmaninov – no shortage of semiquavers…), revising the Dvorak Piano Quintet for the next Music at St Peter's concert later this month, and preliminary rehearsals with clarinettist John Slack for a concert in Germany a couple of weeks later (Mozart, Debussy, Brahms…). Phew!