Just returned from three days of recording at Champs Hill, the popular 'new kid on the block' of purpose-built recital and recording venues! Set in stunning Sussex countryside, this was an idyllic place to be for a few days. This is a disc of English oboe music, with James Turnbull, produced by the superb Richard Surcliffe, and will be released later this year. We were sandwiched between two live broadcasts by the BBC as part of their Radio 3 Spirit of Schubert week – it's obviously the place to be this week! Lovely also to pop over to Dunsfold Music Circle on the middle day for a recital with Cara Berridge; Chopin and Debussy cello sonatas made a complete change from English oboe repertoire!
Opening night of RAO's Die Zauberflöte! Toi toi to all.
Last night's performance of the St John Passion with David Clegg's Aurum Vocale provided a much-appreciated chance to jump back into the field of continuo playing! With a team of London's top baroque players and singers, and outstanding soloists (Rob Murray evangelising; Jimmy Holliday singing Christus; Sophie Bevan, Tim Travers-Brown, Jeremy Budd and Ben Davies singing arias), this was a superb line-up and a joy to be part of.
The Music at St Peter's concert series in Sussex continues to draw sizeable and enthusiastic audiences, and last night was no exception. A concert of seasonal music, this began with Pergolesi's liturgically seasonal Stabat Mater, sung beautifully by Alex Kidgell and Carris Jones, and accompanied by The Hampden Quartet; the second half saw their leader Alexandra Reid step outstandingly into a solo role, with Autumn and Summer of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, along with Winter and Spring from Piazzolla's tango version of the same title. It was lovely to be on the harpsichord and organ for this concert – as a change from usually piano! – and great to see a significant sum of money raised yet again.
Earlier in the day, we ran our first primary schools' education project, spending the morning at St Peter's School, with children assembled from various nearby primary schools. We took the seasons as our starting point, and explored Vivaldi's musical painting of his ideas of the seasons, before the children created their own seasons pieces. An excellent morning had by all!
Hectic accompanying schedule over at Eton at the moment, with string competitions, woodwind competitions, exams and assessments, all ranging from the elementary to the extremely advanced! Great to have the time to work through the music in detail with the boys and help them get used to the process of working with a pianist!
Wonderful to be back in the groove of deeply melancholic Russian song! Last autumn's U3A Russian Music study day at the Wigmore Hall was so oversubscribed that a spring repeat date was fixed, so this gave the programme with mezzo Carris Jones another airing. Fantastic rich music by Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovich and Medtner.
Back in the pit at RAO this week, conducting various stage & piano sessions and piano dress rehearsals for The Magic Flute. There is always a real buzz at this stage of the process, with set, costumes and lighting all starting to come together, albeit a little hectic with so many strands to draw together!
Having handed back the conducting of the main production rehearsals of RAO's Magic Flute to Jane Glover, my responsibility currently lies with getting the chorus and Three Boys (in our case a mixture of boys and girls, and double cast, so actually Six Children…!) up to scratch musically for their sections! Both groups have very significant contributions to the piece; great to see it starting to fit together.
Recording season seems to be on us at the moment – been busy playing for demo discs for Carris Jones (mezzo), Oliver Hunt (bass-baritone) and Rod Morris (countertenor), as well as preparing for March's CD recording with James Turnbull (oboe).