New song cycle, new partnership: Marta Fontanals-Simmons and Christopher Glynn take Oxford Lieder to Birmingham

Marta Fontanals-Simmons & Christopher Glynn

The concert tomorrow, 6 December 2019, at The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, represents the start of a new partnership between Oxford Lieder and the University of Birmingham and Barber Lunchtime Concerts [see my interview with Sholto Kynoch, artistic director of the Oxford Lieder Festival, in which he talks about their developing new partnerships as a way of championing the genre all year round].

Friday's lunchtime recital is being given by mezzo-soprano Marta Fontanals-Simmons [see my interview with Marta] and pianist Christopher Glynn, and they will be performing Martin Suckling’s The Tuning, setting words by Michael Donaghy, which was commissioned by Oxford Lieder, and performed by them at this year’s Oxford Lieder Festival. Also in the programme is Joaquin Turina's Poema en forma de cancione and songs by Debussy and Brahms.

Scottish composer Martin Suckling studied music at Clare College Cambridge and King’s College London, and was Paul Mellon Fellow at Yale University, his teachers have included George Benjamin, Robin Holloway, Paul Patterson, Martin Bresnick, Ezra Laderman, and Simon Bainbridge. From 2013-18 Suckling was the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s Associate Composer, a partnership which resulted in Six Speechless Songs (premiered by Robin Ticciati and later revived by Oliver Knussen), a concerto for pianist Tom Poster, and Meditation (after Donne) for chamber orchestra and electronics.

Full details from the Barber Institute website.