Out of the ashes: Cambridge Schola, formed out of the disbanded St John's Voices, joins with BBC Singers for Rachmaninov's Vespers at Ely Cathedral

 

Cambridge Schola

Around this time last year, St John's College, Cambridge disbanded St John's Voices, the mixed voice choir based at the college which had been created in 2013 to allow female members of the college to take part in the college's choral tradition. Despite significant outcry, the College pressed ahead with the closure.

There has, however, been a more positive outcome as the Cambridge Schola emerged from the ashes. Directed by Graham Walker and with a home base at Emmanuel College, Cambridge Schola performs weekly services of candlelit Compline or Vespers in a different chapel or church each Monday; alongside these services the choir performs concerts each term in and around Cambridge as well as undertaking a variety of other activities.

As part of their new existence, the choir is partnering with a local primary school as a pilot for a bigger project, supported by Deloitte, which will see choir members going regularly into local schools to help teachers and staff with their music provision, encouraging children to get singing. The choir members see this as away to share the support which they experienced during their struggles last year.

On Friday 13 June, the choir is joining forces with the BBC Singers for a concert at Ely Cathedral performing Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigil 'Vespers' conducted by Graham Walker. The concert also features Graham Walker in his cellist guise, performing Rachmaninov's Cello Sonata in G minor with pianist Iain Farrington.

Full details from Ely Cathedral website.

Staged in the majestic surroundings of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, Mendelssohn’s Elijah provoked the inner senses

Birmingham Triennial Music Festival at the Town Hall

Mendelssohn: Elijah; Carolyn Sampson, Sarah Connolly, Andrew Staples, Simon Keenlyside, BBC Singers, BBC Concert Orchestra, Daniel Hyde; King's College Chapel, Cambridge at part of the Cambridge Music Festival
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 1 November 2024

A comfortable and remarkable performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah, blessed by an extremely fine and stellar quartet of soloists

As part of the Cambridge Music Festival, Daniel Hyde, director of music at King’s College Chapel conducted Mendelssohn's Elijah in the chapel on 1 November 2024, with the BBC Singers and BBC Concert Orchestra. A comfortable and remarkable performance of Elijah was blessed by an extremely fine and stellar quartet of soloists admirably led by Sir Simon Keenlyside, a strong lyrical baritone who proved ideal for the part of Elijah while Carolyn Sampson’s clear and distinctive-sounding soprano voice projected round the vastness and majesty of King’s College Chapel with such consummate ease as did, too, the warm and rich-sounding mezzo voice of Dame Sarah Connolly with the tenor, Andrew Staples, adding so much pleasure to a brilliant and exhilarating performance that would be extremely hard to beat. 

An epic Old Testament oratorio on a grand scale, Mendelssohn’s two-part work Elijah (the culmination of his life’s work) was first performed in the newly-built Birmingham Town Hall to a 2,500-strong audience who regularly interrupted proceedings to offer a round of applause while eight numbers, a popular occurrence of the day, were encored. Thankfully, this would not happen nowadays but the half-hearted applause that often breaks out between movements in today’s world I find irritating to the extreme while the misuse of mobile phones in performance stirs my anger. 

Conducted by the composer, the performance (Wednesday 26 August 1846) was, by all accounts, triumphant and formed part of the 1846 Birmingham Triennial Festival who, incidentally, shared their festival with Leeds and Norwich while the other Triennial - the Three Choirs Festival - rotates to this very day with the cathedral towns of Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester.  [see Robert's article, In search of Elijah, exploring that first performance]

On tour from New York, the Philip Glass Ensemble at the Cambridge Music Festival

Philip Glass: Akhnaten - English National Opera, 2016 (Photo: © Richard Hubert Smith)

Philip Glass: Glassworks plus excerpts from Satyagraha, Akhnaten and The Photographer; Lisa Bielawa, Peter Hess. Mick Ross, Sam Sadigursky, Andrew Sterman, Philip Glass Ensemble, music director Michael Riesman, sound engineers Dan Bora, Ryan Kelly, production manager Michael Amacio; Cambridge Music Festival at Cambridge Corn Exchange
Reviewed by Tony Cooper, 1 October 2024

Philip Glass’ music is instantly recognisable with its pulsating rhythms, hypnotic repetition and slowly shifting patterns of notes. His music sits somewhere between classical music and rock, intricately constructed yet filled with familiar chords and clean-cut electronic sounds

Showing talent from a very early age, Philip Glass, born 31 January 1937 in Baltimore, Maryland, widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 21st century, developed his great love of music from his father who owned a record shop. He later discovered that many relations on his father’s side of the family had been musicians, too, including a cousin (pianist) as well as several vaudeville performers. His parents, Latvian and Russian-Jewish emigrants, helped Holocaust survivors at the end of the Second World War by welcoming them into their home to learn English, find a job and rebuild their lives in the United States.  

Employing short ideas which gradually change resulting in an exceptionally hypnotic-layered effect so associated with minimalism, Glass much prefers to describe his work as ‘music with repetitive structures’. Therefore, over the course of a long and distinguished career, he has evolved such repetitive structures to produce a style that is instantly recognisable as a piece of ‘Philip Glass music’. 

Originally a flautist, Glass eventually focused his musical education on the keyboard. By the age of 15, he was studying mathematics and philosophy at the University of Chicago followed by composition at New York’s Juilliard School where among his fellow students was Steve Reich, widely recognised as the ‘founding father’ of the ‘Minimalist movement’. Fellow Americans such as La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Moondog and, indeed, John Adams, were in the front line in developing compositional techniques exploiting a minimalistic approach to music. 

Harmonies of Heaven and Earth: music by Weelkes, Byrd and their contemporaries alongside three contemporary female composers

Luminatus is a vocal ensemble, directed by David Bray, that puts on concerts in the East Midlands and East of England. For their next concert on 28 October 2023 at Downing Place United Reformed Church, Cambridge, CB2 3EL, the ensemble is mixing Renaissance and contemporary music. The Renaissance selection features music by Byrd and Weelkes, to highlight the 400th anniversary of their death, plus music by Cipriano de Rore, Pedro de Cristo, Ippolito Baccusi, Sebastian de Vivanco and movements from the Missa Ad te levavi oculos meos by Philippe de Monte, who knew Byrd. 

De Monte and Byrd probably met when King Philip II of Spain brought the Capilla Flamenca, in which de Monte sang, to England for his marriage to Queen Mary I. Capilla Flamenca and the Chapel Royal sang together at the wedding, and it is assumed Byrd and de Monte met then. That they stayed in contact is indicated by their setting of a pair of interlinking motets, taking text from the same psalm.

The contemporary element of Luminatus' concert features music by three female composers, Melissa Dunphy, Ghislaine Reece-Trapp, and Eleanor Daley.

The debut CD from Luminatus, entitled O Beata Virgo Maria, and featuring music by Renaissance and contemporary composers, is scheduled for release on Convivium Records in the Spring of 2024.

Full details from Luminatus' website.

In celebratory mood, the Cambridge Music Festival notches up its 30th anniversary this year. East Anglian music writer, Tony Cooper, reports.

Takács String Quartet (Photo: Amanda Tipton)

Cambridge Music Festival's autumn concert series (Sunday 17 October to Wednesday 15 November 2023) offers a carefully curated programme of exceptional and unusual performances showcasing everything from traditional Syrian music to classical and early music with performances taking place in some of Cambridge's most historic venues such as King's College Chapel and Trinity College Chapel.

"In a city with so much music-making, Cambridge Music Festival stands apart for the exceptional quality and variety it brings" enthused festival director, Justin Lee. "Variety that takes one from JS Bach to Judith Weir and, indeed, to Syrian traditional music performed by a wide range of world-acclaimed artists including the Takács String Quartet, Angela Hewitt, the BBC Singers, the Philharmonia Orchestra and Maya Youssef."

This year's 'opener' falls to the Takács String Quartet (Sunday 17 October at West Road Concert Hall) playing Haydn's String Quartet, Op.71 No.2 and Beethoven's Razumovsky Quartet. They'll also present a commissioned piece by Stephen Hough demonstrating the festival's commitment to innovation and new creations. And on Friday 3 November at King's College Chapel, the choirs of King's College and New College Oxford join forces with the Philharmonia Orchestra to perform Haydn's choral masterpiece The Creation under the baton of Daniel Hyde.

A significant tribute to Sir John Tavener can be enjoyed on Friday 10 November at King's College Chapel (being recorded for broadcasting on BBC Radio 3) featuring the BBC Singers, cellist Natalie Clein and organist Paul Greally. They'll explore Tavener's profound works commemorating the composer's legacy on the tenth anniversary of his death while virtuoso pianist, Angela Hewitt, will perform JS Bach's iconic Goldberg Variations at Trinity College Chapel on Monday 13 November.

Sharing her sense of belonging through her spellbinding music, Quanun player/composer, Maya Youssef, [whom Robert interviewed in May this year] will be joined by a small ensemble in what promises a marvellous and interesting concert at the Old Divinity School of St John's College on Wednesday 15 November. By using the delicate and mystical sound of the quanun (Arabic zither) she'll create a sound world that stems from Middle Eastern traditions but encompasses styles including that of jazz and flamenco.

Maya Youssef (Photo Igor Studio)

Jumping ahead to next year, the February spring series offers more extraordinary performances by the likes of pianist Stephen Hough, early music ensemble Arcangelo, 12 Ensemble, master sitarist Jasdeep Singh Degun, the acclaimed American Bugallo-Williams piano duo and vocal ensemble Tenebrae. Furthermore, a unique installation arrives in Cambridge during February half-term inviting members of the public to experience the Philharmonia Orchestra's virtual reality orchestra.

And in celebration of the festival's 30th anniversary, nine stunning new films have been commissioned in collaboration with percussionist Joby Burgess featuring new music from such luminous creatives as Gabriel Prokofiev, Dario Marianelli, Graham Fitkin, Dobrinka Tabakova, John Metcalfe, Yazz Ahmed and Tunde Jegede.

Other highlights of the festival's special (and festive) anniversary season include performances from Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason, London Mozart Players, pianist Stephen Hough, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, the Takács String Quartet and Chineke! Chamber Ensemble as well as two Cambridge institutions - the Choir of King's College Cambridge and the Academy of Ancient Music.

Founded in 1991, the current director of the Cambridge Music Festival, Justin Lee, has been in post since 2012 and under his leadership, the festival has featured an array of leading artists ranging from Murray Perahia to Nigel Kennedy and from the Philip Glass Ensemble to the Borodin String Quartet in orchestral, choral and chamber-music concerts running alongside a well-planned programme of education and community events.

As the Cambridge Music Festival receives no public subsidy or Arts Council support whatsoever, a generous and dedicated core of sponsors and individual donors regularly come to the rescue by providing at least 70 per cent of the festival's income. This feat alone needs to be loudly applauded. Bravo!

As an aside, a couple of artists appearing at the festival this year, Mahan Esfahani and Angela Hewitt, have just released their latest recordings on the Hyperion label, a lively, independent and forward-thinking British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods ranging from the 12th to the 21st century.

The first and only harpsichordist to be a BBC New Generation Artist (2008-10), Esfahani's recording of JS Bach's French Suites are simply sublime and prospective listeners to this wonderful new set should be rest assured that any hint of the routine remains as distant a threat as ever. [Buy Mahan Esfahani's Bach: The French Suites from Amazon]. 

On the other hand, Hewitt sensitively captures so well the distinctive writing and detail of Mozart's Piano Sonatas K310-311 and K330-333 [Buy Angela Hewitt's Mozart Sonatas from Amazon]. Her voyage of discovery through these wonderful pieces are so engaging and such a joy to hear offering the listener vital and alert accounts of the works in question while respecting their scale and sensibility and, indeed, revealing the influences of Mozart's orchestral and concerto writing of the period.

Online booking: https://cambridgemusicfestival.co.uk/

info@cambridgemusicfestival.co.uk

DNA, Evolution, Music and more: The Darwins and Music

In 1885, George Howard Darwin (son of the Charles Darwin of On the Origin of Species fame) and his wife bought Newnham Grange in Cambridge. After the death of George Darwin's son Charles (a physicist) the family gave the house for the foundation of Darwin College. Now, the college is the venue for a concert, on Saturday 29 October 2022, The Darwins and Music which looks at the Darwin family and their engagement with music, placing pieces by composers the family engaged with alongside contemporary pieces inspired by the Darwin's scientific researches.

They were a remarkable family and the concert looks at the musical interests of the enlightenment polymath Erasmus Darwin, through to his famous grandson, Charles Darwin and his wife Emma Wedgwood before ending on the musical interests of his son, George Howard Darwin, and grandchildren. The Darwin family intermarried with the Wedgewood farmily, creating a remarkable scientific/artistic nexus that the concert seeks to explore.

There will be music by John Alcock, Fanny Mendelssohn, Frédéric François Chopin and Ralph Vaughan Williams (whose mother was Charles Darwin's niece) and contemporary composer David Gahan. Gahan's string quartet, Eyenigma Variations: A Fantasia on Codes will be receiving its first public performance at the concert. Gahan describes the work as being "inspired by Darwin's writings on 'The Eye' (Ch. 6 ‘Origin’) - a transcription of the genetic code of the visual protein rhodopsin - various other musical codes, and variations on a well-known mid-Victorian hymn and counterblast to Evolution". The performers include Paul Warburton, Carola Darwin, Marie-Noëlle Kendall, and the Trinity Street Consort .

And the concert links in to the exhibition Darwin in Conversation: The Endlessly Curious Life and Letters of Charles Darwin at Cambridge University library.

Further details about the concert also from the library website, and tickets (which are free) from EventBrite.

Two weeks of fine music in historic venues: Cambridge Summer Music 2022

Cambridge Summer Music, artistic director David Hill, runs from 15 to 31 July 2022, presenting 23 concerts in and around Cambridge, including  college chapels, city churches, concert halls and the Cambridge University Botanic Garden.

The festival opens on 15 July when Orlando Jopling's Wild Arts Ensemble presents their new production of Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte in the gardens of Childerley Hall in West Drayton. Other large-scale events include Mendelssohn's Elijah in Ely Cathedral with 200 young singers from Gabrieli Roar plus Gabrieli Consort & Players, conductor Paul McCreesh with soloists Francesca Chienjina, Helen Charlston, Andrew Staples, and Morgan Pearse. The festival concludes on 31 July with Aurora Orchestra performing Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 from memory.

Tenor Robert Murray joins violinist Benjamin Baker and the Echea Quartet for RVW's On Wenlock Edge and The Lark Ascending, plus songs by Gurney and Elgar's Violin Sonata. Baritone Marcus Farnsworth and pianist James Cheung takes us to Vienna with songs by Gustav and Alma Mahler, Schoenberg and Beethoven.

Visitors to the festival include pianist Imogen Cooper in Schubert and Ravel, pianist Artur Pizarro in Albeniz's Iberia, accordionist Ryan Corbett, cellist Guy Johnston and pianist Tom Poster in Beethoven, Poulenc and Brahms, violinist Tai Murray and pianist Martin Roscoe in Clara & Robert Schumann, trumpeter Crispian Steele-Perkins and organist David Hill, the Mithras Trio in Beethoven, Faure and Lili Boulanger, horn player Alec Frank Gemmill and the Perks Ensemble in music for horn and quartet including Gemmill's arrangement of Dvorak's String Quintet in E flat, Connaught Brass, and the Wigmore Soloists in Beethoven's Septet and Schubert's Octet.

The festival's outdoor concerts at the Botanic Gardens, Sounds Green, return every Wednesday evening throughout July with a wide variety of performers.

Full details from the festival website

Handel and Purcell in an orchard

Eboracum Baroque in the Orchard Tea Garden, Grantchester

What better place to experience Baroque music outdoors than in an orchard, and one that serves tea to boot. The enterprising Eboracum Baroque is returning to The Orchard Tea Garden in Grantchester for a series of performances in June 2021. 

Their short season opens on 24 June with an all-Purcell programme which features highlights from his semi-opera The Fairy Queen alongside his opera Dido and Aeneas. Purcell was also the theme of Eboracum Baroque's virtual concert Purcell and a Pint, and they will be doing a live version of it in Grantchester, there is also a programme of popular Baroque classics from Handel, Purcell and Vivaldi including operatic arias, concertos and instrumental suites, and the season finishes with a performance of Handel's pastoral Acis and Galatea.

The Orchard Tea Garden will be serving refreshments before the performances and during the interval. Audience members are invited to bring their own seating if they wish but the famous green deck chairs will also be out. 

Full details from the Eboracum Baroque website.

 

A celebration of cooperation between musicians at different stages of their careers and the value of music education

The Seraphin Chamber Orchestra, founded by cellist and composer Joy Lisney, is made up of talented young musicians studying in Cambridge. On Sunday 3 March 2019 the orchestra is embarking on a hugely ambitious project, a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 9 at West Road Concert Hall 

The orchestra will be joined by the best Cambridge University players, select graduate students from leading conservatoires, talented young musicians from the Cambridge area (National Youth Orchestra principals and BBC Young Musician finalists) and guest players from professional orchestras including Paul Barritt (guest Leader of the Hallé), Michael Wright (ex-principal clarinet of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra), Michael Buchanan (trombone, winner of the ARD Munich Competition and previously principal of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and Scottish National Opera), and Colin Alexander (cellist, BBC Symphony Orchestra).

Prior to the evening performance, the guest players will rehearse with the orchestra, offering mentoring and coaching to the young players. This is a wonderful opportunity for aspiring young musicians to learn from and perform alongside leading professionals and represents an important musical and educational collaboration.

This concert is a celebration of cooperation between musicians at different stages of their careers and the value of music education.

All proceeds from the concert will go to the Voices Foundation. Further information and tickets from ADC Ticketing.