Eternity In An Hour: Keval Shah and Jess Dandy on their unique reimagining of the Bhagavad Gita

ETERNITY IN AN HOUR - Jess Dandy and Keval Shah by Clare Park

On Tuesday 15 October at Oxford International Song Festival, contralto Jess Dandy and pianist Keval Shah will give the world premiere of Eternity In An Hour, a concert-meditation-ritual combining Western art song and Godsongs, a new set of Sanskrit songs by Indian-American composer, Reena Esmail [one of whose pieces was included in the most recent BBC Ten Pieces earlier this year, see our article].

Esmail’s songs set portions of the Bhagavad Gita, a central scripture of Hinduism and Vedantic thought. Godsongs will be interspersed with works from the western song canon, all linked with connecting improvisations, creating an unbroken dialogue between European and Indian classical cultures and soundworlds, and exploring ways in which the philosophical traditions of East and West converge and diverge.

In advance of their performance, Keval Shah and Jess Dandy reflect on the process of bringing to life this unique concert experience.

Steeping listeners in Indian classical music without them knowing it: sitar player Jasdeep Singh Degun

Jasdeep Singh Degun

Jasdeep Singh Degun's tour of Anomaly featuring music from his acclaimed Real World Records debut disc opens on 17 May 2023 at the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds and continues to Norwich, Nottingham, Southampton, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Manchester and Liverpool [see website for details]. We met up earlier this month, whilst he was in London (the previous day he had been on BBC Radio 3's In Tune) to chat about Anomaly, and working with both Western classical and Indian classical musics.

Jasdeep is a sitar player and composer whose work in Indian classical music has crossed over into Western classical in such projects as Arya, his 2020 concerto for sitar written for Opera North, and for Opera North's Orpheus project which combined Monteverdi's opera with Indian classical music and for which Jasdeep was the co-musical director (with Lawrence Cummings).

Born in Leeds to Punjabi parents who came to the UK in the 1980s, in person, Jasdeep embodies this dual heritage, he wears a turban yet speaks with a distinct Leeds accent. At one point during our interview he comments that he is just a 'random guy from Leeds', he does not come from a musical family, his involvement in Indian classical music began at the local community centre and he only started concentrating on studying the sitar when he was in his teens, which is relatively late. He studied sitar with Ustad Dharambir Singh MBE, his teacher.

Jasdeep Singh Degun performing Arya: concerto for sitar and orchestra with Orchestra of Opera North (Photo Justin Slee)

A joy in telling stories in music: the Manchester Camerata, the Monastery & music

Manchester Camerata's Music Cafe at the Monastery (Photo Duncan Elliott)

If you visit Gorton in Manchester today, it is something of a puzzle why E.W. Pugin's gloriously exotic church, now known as The Monastery, even exists, surrounded as it is by desolation and modern housing estates. Built at the height of Manchester's 19th-century expansion, abandoned and nearly demolished in the 20th century it has been re-invented as a community hub and resource, as well as the home to one of Manchester's liveliest ensembles, the Manchester Camerata.

In the mid-19th century, Gorton was a hive of industry, home to a number of industrial plants. The growing population needed religious support and a group of Belgian Franciscan friars came over and in the 1860s built a church as their base. Technically it was a friary, but it became known locally as the Monastery. When we were students in Manchester in the 1970s we called it the rocket ship, and it was in the then deeply unfashionable Victorian gothic style, designed by E.W. Pugin, son of the more famous A.W. Pugin.

The last friar left in 1989 and what followed is a typical story - sale to a rogue developer, abandonment, vandalisation, desolation. In the early 21st century a former choir boy and his wife rediscovered it and made it their mission to restore it and find a use. Now fully restored, missing buildings re-built and operating as a wedding and event venue, its rooms are let out for office space and Manchester Camerata is among the tenants. The money made from such commercial operations goes to the building's support and to funding the Monastery's many community activities including an important listening service.

The Monastery, Gorton, Manchester (Photo: Cnbrb/Wikipedia)

Mangling Médée: why are stylistically appropriate performances of Cherubini's opera so rare?

Cherubini: Medea - Sondra Radvanovsky - Metropolitan Opera (Photo Metropolitan Opera)

Mangling Médée: In the wake BBC Radio 3's broadcast of Cherubini's Medea from New York's Metropolitan Opera, we look at why stylistically appropriate performances of Cherubini's 1797 opera remain such a rarity

Last October (2022), the Metropolitan Opera in New York presented its first-ever production of Cherubini's Medea (recently heard on BBC Radio 3). The work was famously associated with Maria Callas, and the Met history of the opera is linked to Rudolph Bing's failure to woo the diva to sing the role in New York. Perhaps because of this history, the performance in October used the version of the opera that Callas performed. This is a version created in 1909 for the work's debut at La Scala, Milan. This used the shortened version of the opera which Cherubini presented in Vienna in 1809, replaced the spoken dialogue with recitatives that had been created for a German version of the opera presented in Frankfurt in 1855 and added an entirely new Italian translation. 

The result is to present a stylistic mish-mash which is a long way from Cherubini's intentions, adjusting it to suit the style of early 20th-century Italian opera with its emphasis on verismo, and this includes slow tempos reflecting that the leading roles were being sung by vastly different voices to those of the original singers. In fact, that 1909 La Scala performance starred verismo soprano Ester Mazzoleni, though the work can hardly be counted as a success because it did not reoccur in Italy until Callas took it up, in Florence in 1953! 

The Ring begins: music director Ben Woodward introduces the start of Regents Opera's new Ring Cycle

On 13 November 2022, Regents Opera will perform Wagner's Das Rheingold in the Freemasons Hall in Great Queen Street, conducted by Ben Woodward and directed by Caroline Stanton, the first of a yearly instalment of the Ring Cycle which culminates in two complete cycles in 2024.

Regents Opera was formed in 2020 from the amalgamation of Regents Opera and Fulham Opera, and from 2011 to 2014, Fulham Opera put together an innovative staged Ring Cycle that gained 5* reviews, performing two complete Ring Cycles in 2014 with accompaniment from four horns, flute, harp, and four hands at the piano, all with Ben Woodward as musical director.

Here Ben introduces the new Ring Cycle project:

I've been, once again, drawn to Wagner's Ring Cycle, such that it will reach its fiery conclusion a shade over 10 years after we did the last one.  When Fulham Opera did the Ring in 2011-14, it was mainly with my 10 fingers at the piano; I added a flute and a horn for Siegfried, and for Götterdämmerung, we added 4 horns, the same flautist and a harp, and my assistant and I played some of it as a piano duet - Siegfried's Funeral March and the Immolation in particular.

Much though I'd love to have all 100 of Wagner's orchestral pieces, this is neither realistic without an orchestra pit nor a massive budget, so I have spent a huge number of hours since the 2020 lockdown rearranging the whole Ring Cycle for 18 pieces (1.1.1.1./2.1.1./2.2.2.2.1 plus an extra horn bumper), which, when we found out we were using the Freemasons' Hall, I've added the organ to as well.  It's been a massive undertaking, taking hundreds of hours at my iMac in my office in the roof of our apartment in Berlin, putting all of the notes, long-hand, into Dorico.

Reflections on All the Ends of the World: violinist Lizzie Ball on her project with The Sixteen to highlight climate change and global warming

Image from Heather Britton's film for All the Ends of the World

All the Ends of the World is a collaboration between videographer Heather Britton, violinist Lizzie Ball and The Sixteen which combines plainchant, choral music, polyphony, free improvisation and stunning imagery. Created to demonstrate the long lasting and dramatic effects of climate change and global warming, the concert will explore our relationship with the planet we live on. Here, Lizzie Ball explains how the project developed.

All the Ends of the World came about after a pretty unique collaboration between The Sixteen, Harry Christophers and I (as both a performer and producer of Classical Kicks), almost 3 years ago to the day. In Nov 2019, (pre-armageddon), the richly atmospheric walls of the one and only Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club hosted the likes of plainchant, polyphony and Purcell for the very first time thanks to an invitation from Club owner and supporter of The Sixteen, Michael Watt. The club warmly welcomed The Sixteen together with me and an all-star line-up, including: the club’s Artistic Director and co -curator of the event James Pearson, accordion superstar Martynas Levickis, rapper and artist Isatta Sheriff, percussionist James Turner, and bass player Tim Thornton. Woven within the world of choral perfection were re-imaginings of Oscar Peterson’s Hymn to Freedom, bluegrass medleys, and even some Mexican boleros! Such has always been the flavour of any Classical Kicks event; it has always been wide in its musical offering and aims to be striking in its quality and impact.  

The curious case of Alan Bush's operas

Alan Bush: Wat Tyler - Keynote Opera Society, Sadlers Wells, June 1974 - Wat Tyler (John Noble).

His first opera won a prize in the Arts Council Festival of Britain Competition of 1951, was broadcast on the radio in 1952 which led to many stage productions. Its stage premiere in 1953 was applauded for 25 minutes. The success resulted in further commissions, his second opera was premiered in 1956 with further productions in 1957, 1959 and 1960. His third opera arose directly out of the success of the second, being premiered in 1966 with further productions in 1969 and 1973. His fourth and last opera premiered in 1970. That is a record matched, I suspect, by few post-war British composers except Britten and perhaps Tippett.

The composer of this amazing run of operatic success was of course Alan Bush; the premieres and many of the subsequent performances took place in East Germany.

Dancing a pas de deux with Tchaikovsky and holidaying in North Africa: rumours swirled around Saint-Saens even before his death

Camille Saint-Saens

Rumours circled around Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) and his private life, even during his lifetime and he would comment, "If it is said that I have a bad character, I assure you that it is all the same to me. Take me as I am." It is not surprising; in July 1878 the composer (aged 43 at the time) and his wife Marie went on holiday to a spa, and on 28 July 1878 Saint-Saens left their hotel room and disappeared. A few days later his wife received a letter from him to say that he would not be returning. They never saw each other again. Marie Saint-Saëns returned to her family, and lived until 1950, dying near Bordeaux at the age of ninety-five, though she would attend Saint-Saens' funeral in 1921.

Saint-Saens had been nearly 40 when he married 19-year-old Marie-Laure Truffot, the sister of one of his pupils. It was not a great success, Saint-Saens' mother (with whom he lived) disapproved and was difficult. Immediately after their wedding, Saint-Saëns declared that he was too busy for a honeymoon and took Marie straight home to live with his mother. Thereafter the composer treated his wife with disdain, until the arrival of children brought out a more sympathetic side. The couple had two sons, both of whom died in infancy, and the double blow effectively destroyed their marriage. After leaving his wife, Saint-Saens would form a bond with his friend and teacher Faure and his wife and children, effectively creating a surrogate family.

But is there more to it.