Sheku Kanneh-Mason cello
Susanna Hurrell soprano
Madeleine Shaw mezzo soprano
Andrew Tortise tenor
Roland Wood baritone
Southwell Festival Voices
Southwell Festival Sinfonia
Marcus Farnsworth conductor
Libby Burgess chorusmaster
Edward Elgar Cello Concerto
Michael Tippett A Child of Our Time
Following his sell-out solo recital last year, the Festival is proud to present the brilliant Sheku Kanneh-Mason playing the most famous concerto in the cello repertoire.
Michael Tippett, a confirmed pacifist who was to become one of Britain’s leading composers of the 20th century, began writing A Child of Our Time on 3 September 1939 – the day Britain declared war on Germany. It was a response to fascism and European disunity – an attack on racial prejudice, bigotry and xenophobia whose message is as relevant today as it was nearly 80 years ago. In a work of originality and great beauty, for which the composer wrote both words and music, Tippett uses five spirituals to underline his message: these 19th-century American slave songs transcend time and place to express the two extremes of the human condition – desolation and hope, and remind us of our common humanity.
