Looking Ahead: James Willshire's Debussy Festival

James Willshire

Pianist James Willshire has been celebrating the 100th anniversary of Debussy's death by presenting the composer's piano music throughout the year in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds and Manchester. This culminates in Willshire's Debussy Festival, a two day event in Edinburgh on 1 & 2 December 2018 at the newly refurbished St Cecilia's Hall, a Georgian concert hall. Dating from 1763 the hall is Scotlands oldest purpose-built one (Oxford's Holywell Music Room dates from 1748) and now part of Edinburgh University.

The weekend features eight concerts and two pre-concert talks. Willshire himself will be presenting a journey through Debussy's works for solo piano, more than five hours of music presented in five recitals during the two days, from the very early music to the demanding late pieces such as the Etudes. There will also be a concert of Debussy's chamber music from Philippa Harrison (piano), Mark Bailey (cello) and Gongbo Jiang (violin), and two vocal recitals with John Cameron (piano) accompanying Jessica Leary (soprano), Judy Brown (mezzo-soprano), Jemma Brown (soprano) and Kimberley Dove (soprano).

In February this year James Willshire accompanied viola player Rosalind Ventris in the premiere of my Three Pieces from the Book of Common Prayer at Cheltenham Music Society [see my article].

Full details from the St. Cecilia's Hall website (opens as PDF), tickets from EventBrite.

The English Concert is celebrating its 45th anniversary

The English Concert is celebrating its 45 anniversary year. Now directed by Harry Bicket, the ensemble was founded in 1973 by harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock and they gave their first concert at the Purcell Rooms. To celebrate the anniversary the ensemble returned to the Southbank, to the re-furbished Queen Elizabeth Hall on 11 October 2018 where forte pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout, the group's new guest director, to perform a programme of CPE Bach, JC Bach and Mozart.

Under artistic director Harry Bicket, the group has recorded a celebratory disc of concertos for Signum Classics, showcasing the talents of musicians from within the group, so violinists Nadja Zwiener and Tuomo Suni, violist Alfonso Leal del Ojo, cellist Joseph Crouch, and oboist Katharina Spreckelsen all take step-out roles from the ensemble. The concertos are quite a diverse bunch, by Evaristo Felice Dall'Abaco, Nicola Porpora, Alessandro Marcello, Giuseppe Tartini and Georg Philipp Telemann.

Full details of the 2018/19 season from the English Concert's website, and their new disc is available from Amazon.

From Beethoven to Rock

I first came across the pianist AyseDeniz Gockin some years ago playing her own classical piano arrangements of Pink Floyd in the Hospital Club bar [see my article], entirely unphased by the bar's inability to turn off the background music and lighting up the room with her fizzing musical energy. Whilst Turkish-born, London-resident AyseDeniz trained at the Royal Academy of Music, it is the boundaries between classical and popular that interest her and she has produced her own classical piano arrangements of many rock standards. For her latest album, she is pushing the envelope again.

She is launching the album with a concert at St James's Church, Sussex Gardens on Friday 19 October 2018. She will be joined by cellist Benjamin Hughes (Principal Cello of BBC Concert Orchestra) and they will be performing some of Beethoven's most popular sonatas, along with rock covers arranged by AyseDeniz as well as some of her own compositions from her last album "Covers and Originals". More intriguingly, some of the concert will come as a silent disco (for those unaware of the phenomenon you listen entirely through headphones whilst watching the artists) ith remixes of tracks dedicated to Beethoven, as well as information regarding the pieces that you will be able to listen to during the live performance.

The concept will either intrigue or appall, but if you go with open ears and open mind you never know what you might hear!

Full details from EventBrite.

Southbank Sinfonia and Vladimir Ashkenazy in Grieg, Prokofiev and Beethoven

Vladimir Ashkenazy

Grieg, Prokofiev, Beethoven; Southbank Sinfonia, Vladimir Ashkenazy; Milton Court Concert Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 16 October 2018
Star rating: 4.0
Fizzing with youthful energy, Southbank Sinfonia in concert with its patron, Vladimir Ashkenazy

Southbank Sinfonia's season runs from February to November, at the beginning of each year a new group of young players comes together for a season of training and mentoring at this remarkable orchestral academy. So the orchestra's concert on Tuesday 16 October 2018 at Milton Court Concert Hall was towards the end of the present intake's season. The concert took place away from their base at St John's Church, Waterloo, because it was something of an occasion, the conductor was the orchestra's patron, Vladimir Ashkenazy.

The programme included three works, all of which have a strong element of dance in them. The first half consisted of a pair of works where 19th/20th century composers looked at the past, Edvard Grieg's Holberg Suite and Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. The second half was devoted to a symphony which Wagner called 'The Apotheosis of Dance', Beethoven's Symphony No. 7

Created for the celebrations of the bicentenary of the Norwegian writer Ludvig Holberg, Grieg's suite is a series of Baroque dances filtered through his very 19th century sensibilities. The work is familiar, in danger of being hackneyed, but Vladimir Ashkenazy and Southbank Sinfonia brought an engaging energy to the platform along with a clear delight at being there.

Looking ahead: Prelude - skydiving from a dream

In 2015 the Scottish Ensemble collaborated with Andersson Dance and the Swedish choreographer Örjan Andersson to produce Goldberg Variations - ternary patterns for insomnia based on Bach's Goldberg Variations. Now the two are collaborating again on a new work, Prelude - skydiving from a dream which uses Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, plus extracts from Bach's The Art of Fugue and Lutoslawki's Preludes and Fugues for 13 solo strings. An intriguing innovation of the new work will be the way Andersson's choreography treats the dancers and the musicians as equals, blurring their roles and breaking the rules and expectations that can often apply to classical music performance.

The production premieres at the Tramway in Glasgow (9 & 10 November), then tours to Dundee (13 November), Inverness (15 November), and it will receive its Swedish premiere in March 2019, on a 6-date tour across Sweden including two performances at Stockholm’s Dansens Hus.

Further information from the Scottish Ensemble website.

Wolfgang Holzmair in Suffolk and Oxford

Wolfgang Holzmair

The great Austrian baritone Wolfgang Holzmair is making welcome appearances in Suffolk and Oxford this month as he and pianist Roger Vignoles give recitals at Aldeburgh and at the Oxford Lieder Festival.

On Tnursday 18 October 2018, Holzmair and Vignoles will be in the intimate surroundings of Aldeburgh's Jubilee Hall for a programme which combines songs by Claude Debussy with songs by Lili Boulanger, both of whom died in 1918. Holzmair will be singing Debussy's Trois chansons de France, Fêtes galantes, Deux romances, and Trois ballades de François Villon. The audience will also be able to sample French wines! Further details from the Snape Maltings website.

On Sunday 21 October, Holzmair and Vignoles are in Oxford for a lunchtime recital which revists the same programme as the start of Holzmair's residency at the festival where he is coaching the Mastercourse, so there will be a chance to see him in action each morning coaching the young singers on the course.

Full details of the Oxford Lieder Festival from the festival website.

A Bernstein Celebration - London Song Festival

Bernstein conducting the
New York City Symphony Orchestera (1945)

A Bernstein Celebration; Lucy Knight, Sophie Goldrick, Grainne Gillis, Alberto Sousa, Felix Kemp, Will Thomas, Nigel Foster; London Song Festival at Hinde Street Methodist Church Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 13 October 2018
From musicals to Songfest and rarer items, a wonderful celebration of Bernstein in song

If you are presenting a recital of Schumann song, then finding a replacement for an ailing singer at short notice is at least usually possible. But if your recital is of unusual or lesser-known repertoire, then problems increase. 

Nigel Foster launched his 2018 London Song Festival on Saturday 13 October 2018 at Hinde Street Methodist Church with a celebration of all things Bernstein, excerpts from the musicals, and the song cycles La Bonne Cuisine, I Hate Music! and the vastly underrated Songfest. Of the planned singers, alto Grainne Gillis, tenor Alberto Sousa, baritone Felix Kemp and bass Will Thomas were present, whilst soprano Lucy Knight came on board at two weeks notice, whilst mezzo-soprano Sophie Goldrick joined the cast at a mere two days notice.

Thanks to an heroic amount of speed-learning, the programme went ahead pretty much as planned. We lost two or three items and gained one, thanks to Goldrick's recent experience in Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti. The biggest loss was two movements of Songfest, but we should be thankful that thanks to a great deal of hard work, such an unusual and enlightening programme went ahead.

We started with three songs from La Bonne Cuisine, Bernstein's 1947 song cycle setting texts from a French cookbook! Originally written for a single singer, here the songs were split between Lucy Knight, Grainne Gillis and Will Thomas. Varying from the rapid patter of Plum Pudding, through the exoticism of Tavouk Guenksis to the dramatic Rabbit at Top Speed, words count in these songs and only Will Thomas managed the challenge perfectly, getting his Rabbit out in brilliant style.

We moved to musicals for the next group, starting with a sparkling performance from Lucy Knight in Glitter and be Gay from Candide, with Knight combining engaging charm with fine coloratura, and clarity in the words.

Hansel and Gretel (a nightmare in eight scenes)

Hansel & Gretel: a nightmare in eight scenes - Goldfield Productions
(Photo Still Moving Media courtesy Cheltenham Music Festival)

Hansel & Gretel; Goldfield Productions; Milton Court Concert Hall
Reviewed by Anthony Evans on 12 October 2018 Star rating: 3.0 (★★★)
Dark and quirky: multimedia interpretation of Hansel & Gretel

On Friday 12 October 2018, Milton Court Concert Hall, in Silk Street, was the venue for Goldfield Productions’ multimedia Hansel and Gretel [see Robert's interview with Kate Romano, Goldfield Productions' artistic director]. It was a mixture of poetry, chamber music, puppetry and shadow play. Inspired by the striking visual creations of artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins, Simon Armitage’s poetic libretto, given voice by the captivating Adey Grummet, was woven in to Matthew Kaner’s evocative chamber music. Hansel and Gretel were brought to life by the table-top puppeteers Diana Ford and Lizzie Wort whilst the characters of the mother, father and the cathartid witch were created using shadow puppetry.

Described as dark and quirky, that’s just how it should be.

100 years of Nine Lessons & Carols

On Christmas Eve 1918, King's College Chapel introduced a new service which aimed to bring a more imaginative approach to worship, combining popular and lesser known carols with Bible readings which told the Christmas story. A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was first broadcast in 1928 and the service has now become a staple part of Christmas in the UK and elsewhere, watched and listened to by many for whom this will be the only religious aspect of Christmas. A feature of the service has been the remarkable sequence of Christmas carols commissioned by contemporary composers.

The format of the Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols was developed at Truro Cathedral, starting in 1878 and reaching fully developed form in 1880.  It was introduced at King's by the Dean of the College, Eric Milner-White whose experiences as an Army chaplain led him to want to introduce a more imaginative approach to worship, and the Truro liturgy was adapted for King's

The Choir of King's College, Cambridge, conductor Stephen Cleobury, is issuing a two disc set celebrating the centenary of the iconic service. The disc will include new recordings of sixteen iconic carols, forming a fitting tribute to Cleobury who has been at the helm of the choir since 1983 and who steps down next year. But the first disc of the set is devoted to a fascinating sequence of historic recordings, extracts from services conducted by Sir David Willcocks (1958 & 1963) and Philip Ledger (1978 & 1980), and recordings by Cleobury and the choir from 1985 to 2017, including the premieres of carols by Judith Weir, Thomas Ades, Michael Berkeley and Huw Watkins.

100 Years of Nine Lessons & Carols will be released on 9 November 2018.

Imagine It!

As part of the Summer 2018 residential courses, the National Youth Training Choir (part of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain) made this video, performing Janet Wheeler's Imagine It with the percussion duo O Duo (Oliver Cox & Owen Gunnell), for whom the work was created. Wheeler's piece sets a text by John Taylor.

On the video the choir is conducted by Greg Beardsell, and the video filmed at the Richard Whiteley Theatre at Giggleswick School in August 2018.

Composer Janet Wheeler read music at Cambridge , studying with Robin Holloway and Hugh Wood. She went on to run a secondary school music department, and became a music producer for BBC Schools Radio before specialising in conducting and composing.

Something for everyone: Gershwin's 'Porgy and Bess' from English National Opera

Gershwin: Porgy and Bess - Nmon Ford, Nicole Cabell -
English National Opera (Photo Tristram Kenton)

Gershwin Porgy and Bess; Eric Greene, Nicole Cabell, Nmon Ford, Latonia Moore, Nadine Benjamin, Frederick Ballentine, dir: James Robinson, cond: John Wilson; English National Opera at the London Coliseum Reviewed by Ruth Hansford on 11 October 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Full of good things; ENO's first ever production of Gershwin's classic

Gershwin: Porgy and Bess - Nicole Cabell, Eric Greene
English National Opera (Photo Tristram Kenton)

This was the first-ever English National Opera (ENO) production of Porgy and Bess (11 October 2018) and, as a co-production by ENO, Dutch National Opera and the Metropolitan Opera New York, no expense was spared. The company was assembled from home-grown and imported talent on stage with the ENO orchestra in the pit. Whoever might still subscribe to the notion that the piece is hard to cast from black singers of the right calibre must be changing their tune now. Directed by James Robinson and conducted by John Wilson, the production featured Eric Greene as Porgy, Nicole Cabell as Bess, Nmon Ford as Crown, Latonia Moore as Serena, Nadine Benjamin as Clara and Frederick Ballentine as Sportin' Life.

The director James Robinson opted to set the production in the American South in something like the 1920s, but also harking back to those huge ENO productions of the 1980s with revolving set and the stage filled with larger-than-life chorus (40 of them, though it seemed like there were more). The buildings of Catfish Row and the storm at sea were projected on to a scrim downstage. Generally there was a retro feel to the show. And my neighbours in the audience loved that. There have been productions transplanted to a different place and a different time, but this was not one of those.

Handel's Radamisto from English Touring Opera

Handel: Radamisto - William Towers, Katie Bray - English Touring Opera (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

Handel Radamisto; William Towers, Katie Bray, Ellie Laugharne, Grant Doyle, Andrew Slater, John-Colyn Gyeantey, dir: James Conway, cond: Peter Whelan; English Touring Opera at the Hackney Empire
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 13 October 2018 Star rating: 4.5 (★★★★½)
A strikingly designed and characterful performance develops in this effective new staging

Ellie Laugharne, Grant Doyle, William Towers, Katie Bray, Andrew Slater
English Touring Opera (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

Despite often apparently complex plots, the problem with many Handel operas is that nothing much actually happens. This apparent contradiction arises because the Opera seria genre is about the interaction between the characters and the placing of individuals in moral dilemmas, rather than about a narrative with action and plot. So when action does occur is is often subsidiary to the characters' reactions. This means that pieces can sometimes seem a little static, hence the desire of directors to 'cheer them up' with extraneous action.

The opening of English Touring Opera's new production of Handel's Radamisto, directed by James Conway and conducted by Peter Whelan, seemed exactly a case in point. For the first act, we were introduced to each of the characters, William Towers' Radamisto and Katie Bray as his wife Zenobia, Grant Doyle as Tiridate and Ellie Laugharne as his wife Polinessa, with Andrew Slater as Radamisto and Polinessa's father Farasmene and John-Colyn Gyeantey as Tiridate's supporter Tigrane. The engine of the plot was Tiridate's actions as a tyrant and his obsessive devotion to his brother-in-law's wife Zenobia. But this unlikely premise is difficult to establish, and relies on the individual singers to establish a strong connection.

With the act cut somewhat, no-one had that much time to establish themselves. Katie Bray was admirably firm and forthright as Zenobia and her strength of character dominated the act, whilst Grant Doyle did not seem to have quite enough time to create a genuine sense of the obsessive and the tyrannical, he seemed a little too well balanced. I don't often wish singers would chew the scenery but a bit of that might not have come amiss here. Radamisto is basically too nice and too much of a good egg and William Towers, though impressive technically, did not get much beyond this, whilst Ellie Laugharne's Polinessa was admirable but seemed somewhat disjointed from the action, with John-Colyn Gyeantey characterful as the inevitable tenor side-kick.

Handel: Radamisto - William Towers, Katie Bray, Ellie Laugharne, Andrew Slater, Grant Doyle
English Touring Opera (Photo Richard Hubert Smith)

Thankfully, all this changed in the second act, and we seemed almost in a different opera.

Independent Opera showcase.

Svetlina Stoyanova, Michael Mofidian, Ida Ränzlöv, Claire Lees

Independent Opera is showcasing its current group of recipients of Independent Opera Voice Scholarships. On 19 October 2018 at the Wigmore Hall, Claire Lees (soprano), Michael Mofidian (bass-baritone), Ida Ränzlöv (mezzo soprano), Svetlina Stoyanova (mezzo soprano) with Nino Chokhonelidze (piano) will be giving a recital of songs and arias by Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Ravel, Britten, the 20th century Swedish composers Gösta Nystroem and Ture Rangström, Rimsky-Korsakov, Anton Arensky (a pupil of Rimsky Korsakov), Tchaikovsky and the Bulgarian 20th century composer Lyubomir Pipkov, including arias from Don Giovanni, L'heure Espagnole, and The Turn of the Screw, plus the premiere of a new piece by Ēriks Ešenvalds performed by Michael Mofidian.

The four singers were awarded Independent Opera Voice Scholarships in September 2017, and these provide each of the singer with £5,000 towards their tuition fees as well as professional mentoring from Independent Opera's Creative Director, Natalie Murray Beale. Following their graduation, the selected singer progresses onto a Voice Fellowship providing £5,000 of funding to be used towards career development opportunities including singing lessons, coaching, professional development, photographs, website development, travel to and accompaniment at auditions.

We caught Michael Mofidian performing at Kings Place last year with soprano Joan Rogers and pianist Sholto Kynoch [see my review], and we caught Ida Ränzlöv in Judith Weir's The Vanishing Bridegroom with British Youth Opera [see my review] and in Handel's Faramondo at the London Handel Festival [see my review]. Claire Lees was Soeur Constance in Poulenc's Carmelites at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama this year [see my review].

Full details from the Wigmore Hall website.

Portrait of a life (or many): Art songs from the African diaspora

Margaret Bonds

Portrait of a life (or many): Art songs from the African diaspora; Nadine Benjamin, Nigel Foster, Michael Harper; St John's Smith Square Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 12 October 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Art songs from Black composers from the last 100 years, tracing experiences in America, the Caribbean and the UK

Whilst there are Black singers in the operatic community we usually hear from them within a Western classical narrative, we really get to hear from what might be called the Black experience or experiences. Yet there are composers writing within this tradition, voices which are not often heard, so it was with great pleasure that I was at St John's Smith Square on Friday 12 October 2018 when soprano Nadine Benjamin, speaker Michael Harvey and pianist Nigel Foster presented Portrait of a life (or many): Art songs from the African diaspora.

This was a sequence of readings and songs from Black artists, some American, some influences by the Harlem Renaissance and Civil Rights movement and some contemporary British. So we heard songs by Margaret Bonds (1913-1972), Undine Smith Moore (1904-1989), William Grant Still (1895-1978), Florence Price(1887-1953), Nailah Nombeko, H. Leslie Adams (born 1932), Dominque Le Gendre, Shirley Thompson (born 1958), Brittney Elizabeth Boykin (born 1989), Barbara Sherrill and Byron Motley, and Errollyn Wallen (botn 1958), readings from writers including Derek Walcott and Nikki Giovvanni, and song texts by writers including Derek Walcott, Maya Angelou, William Blake and Langston Hughes.

Undine Smith Moore

Following a reading of Mari Evans' Who can be Born Black we heard Three Dream Portraits, settings of poems by Langston Hughes by Margaret Bonds who studied at the Juilliard and with Roy Harris and who collaborated regularly with Langston Hughes. Three Dream Portraits (1959) were three lyrically melancholy songs with hints of blues, spirituals and more in music which aptly complemented Hughes poems which examined what it was to be Black in America. A strikingly different voice and the final song, a setting of Langston Hughes' I, Too, Sing America brought out a voice which is rarely heard in the concert hall.

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Crowd-funding & collaboration: new choral music from Lumen

Benjamin Thiele-Long and Lumen

There are a surprising number of composers who operate under the radar, without a significant media presence. Lumen choir and its conductor Benjamin Thiele-Long aimed to help correct this with their crowd-funded disc Lumen de Lumine which was recently released on the Convivium Records label. Lumenis a relatively new amateur ensemble which aims high, and I recently met up with founder and conductor Benjamin Thiele-Long to find out more.

Benjamin Thiele-Long

The new disc contains 14 pieces by 12 composers of varying ages and backgrounds, many will be new names. Benjamin Thiele-Long and the choir created a very open process from the start, and Benjamin describes the selection of the final pieces for the disc as iterative and collaborative, rather than him specifying everything from the start.

The choir was very much part of the process, getting feedback from the composers so that it was a joint journey. And as part of this, they produced a video with the composers explaining the pieces and their background.

The pieces on the disc are very varied, Clive Whitburn's Who is my neighbour is a commentary on global political issues, whilst Joanna Gill's Safe in the arms of He is a very personal, moving piece, and for Et lacrimatus est Jesus composer Margaret Tesch-Muller set herself the challenge of setting the shortest verse in the Bible.

Benjamin describes that idea of the disc as having something for everyone, and he feels that people will hear at least one piece that they like. Also, the group is hoping to convey something of the excitement the choir feels on discovering new music.

Lumen performs a wide mixture of repertoire, and the Saturday after Benjamin and I speak he is conducting the choir in a concert of Tudor anthems by candlelight. Usually, they sing a mixture of modern pieces and polyphony highlighting what Benjamin feels are the synergies and similarities between the two.

Lumen is very much an amateur choir in that the singers want to be there, and Benjamin characterises them as very curious and enquiring, whether the music is old or new. The group performs music that excites the members, and they want to introduce people to new music. The group is based at St John on Bethnal Green where it rehearses and performs.

Originally Benjamin wanted to create a choir something akin to The Sixteen but comprising amateurs, people not drawn to singing in a church or a cathedral choir. He was looking for a rehearsal venue, yet had little or no money and was lucky enough that they were able to rehearse and perform at St John's, with the concerts being free and St John's taking the money from the bar and the collection. The concerts are thus open to everyone and so the choir is part of the local community.

Lumen is not a big group, it started with eight singers, then grew to 12 and is now 16. Size does not matter to Benjamin so much as the quality of the singers, and that they enjoy it. Benjamin feels that in some ways the smaller group is more approachable to its audiences than a larger one, and with 16 singers they bring out the layers and textures of the music. And if the group occasionally overstretches itself, the singers rise to the challenge.

So they have done things like performing Howells' Collegium Regale at Evensong at St George's Chapel, Windsor (in December 2017), yet there are people in the group who do not read music. The new recording, is thus something the choir is rightly proud of.

Benjamin would love to see other groups developing the idea, of a choir providing the platform for composers via crowd-funding. And Convivium Records were encouraging and enthusiastic about the project. Benjamin has hopes there will be another disc, but it was a big job and after all, he has a day job too.

Benjamin trained as a lawyer and was a barrister for over seven years, and now works in PR and communications. He was a boy chorister and had a choral scholarship at Royal Holloway College. He read psychology and in fact, the chapel choir, directed by Lionel Pike (now Emeritus Professor of Music), was the only choral group open to the non-music students. Benjamin joined and fell in love. He feels that he was lucky to have Lionel Pike as mentor and conductor, and Benjamin aims to emulate Pike's approach including explaining the pieces to the choir

After college, Benjamin was a super-numerary at Guildford Cathedral and then whilst he was at the Bar he set up a choir, Carmen Judicibus. He finds a sense of fulfilment in his work different to that he gains from music, and the two are complementary in other ways has his firm sponsored Lumen's disc.

Before creating Lumen, Benjamin did a lot of work in musical theatre and his arrangements and re-scoring work there gave him confidence as a composer, and in fact, there was a piece of his in Lumen's first concert. This was a setting of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Benjamin's piece on the disc Dreams is a setting of the same poet, thus bringing things full circle.

Lumen de Lumine: new sacred and spiritual choral music
Sam Olivier - There is no dusk to be
Carmen Bradford - My people hath been lost sheep
Simon Whiteley - The way of life
Benjamin Thiele-Long - Dreams
Michael Woliakowski - Beati quorum via
Matt Wetmore - O Sapientia
Brian Moles - Most glorious Lord of life
Clive Whitburn - Who is my neighbour?
Kit Graham - Lullaby
Margaret Tesch-Muller - Et lacrimatus est Jesus
Barry Hopwood - Agnus Dei; The Lord's Prayer
Joanna Gill - Safe in the arms of He
Benjamin Thiele-Long - O Nata Lux
Lumen
Benjamin Thiele-Long (conductor)
Available from Amazon.

Elsewhere on this blog:

• Double concerto for bandoneon and violin (★★★½) - CD review
• The choral music of Richard Allain (★★★½) - CD review
• Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots returns to the Paris Opera - Opera review
• Modified Rapture: Verdi's Aida from the Met (★★★½) - Opera review
• The Emperor's Fiddler - violinist David Irving on historical approaches on his new disc - interview
• Schubert's Winter Journey - Robin Tritschler and Malcolm Martineau at Wigmore Hall  - (★★★★★)  Concert review
• Swan songs - Gerald Finley and Julius Drake at Temple Song  (★★★★★)  - Concert review
• Love & Obsession: Robert & Clara Schumann and Brahms at Conway Hall - concert review
• New dance double bill from New English Ballet Theatre & The English Concert (★★★★)  - Ballet Review
• Pared down & claustrophobic: La Tragédie de Carmen from Pop-Up Opera  (★★★) - Opera review
• Vividly theatrical, lyrically sung, but.... - Salome at ENO  (★★★★) - Opera review
• A forgotten tradition: premiere recordings of two English symphonic works from John Andrews & BBC Concert Orchestra (★★★½) - CD review
• Huw Watkins - Two concertos and a symphony (★★★½) - CD review
• Jiri Belohlavek & the Czech Philharmonic in Janacek (★★★★½) - CD review
•  Home

Calypsos and Dancing Masters: The 13th Malcolm Arnold Festival

Sir Malcom Arnold

The 13th Malcolm Arnold Festival takes place this weekend (13 & 14 October 2018) in and around Northampton, particularly at the Royal & Derngate. Highlights of this year's festival include a concert by the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Keith Lockhart, which includes Arnold's Symphony No. 4, alongside Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story and Copland's Clarinet Concerto (with Julian Bliss), and John Andrews will be conducting a concert-performance of Arnold's one-act opera The Dancing Master with a cast which includes Charmian Bedford, Thalie Knights and Jan Capinski. 

Arnold's Symphony No.4 was commissioned by William Glock for the BBC and the composer conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra for the premiere in 1960. Arnold later wrote that the piece was a reaction to the 1958 Notting Hill race riots, the composer being appalled that such things could occur in Britain. The work includes Caribbean instruments and rhythms.

Arnold's 1952 comic opera The Dancing Master, based on a play by Wycherly, was rejected by the BBC as being 'too bawdy for a family audience'!  It was performed by Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2015 [see my review].

Visitors to the festival this year include Northampton County Youth Orchestra, Rushden Town Band, recorder player Tabea Debus who plays Arnold's Recorder Concerto at the family concert with the Malcolm Arnold Festival Strings conducted by Hilary Davan Wetton.

Full information from the Royal & Derngate website.

Double concerto for Bandoneon and Violin

JP Jofre Double concerto for violin and bandoneon; JP Jofre, Michael Guttman, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 12 October 2018 Star rating: 3.5 (★★★½)
Striking textures and timbres in this intriguing new concerto

The bandoneon (development of the concertina) is an instrument very much associated with Astor Piazzolla, it was the composer's chosen instrument and features a lot in his music and Piazzolla even wrote a bandoneon concerto. But his espousal of the instrument has led others to it as well.

This new disc features a Double Concerto for Violin and Bandoneon by the Argentinian bandoneon player and composer JP Jofre (Juan Pablo Jofre Romarion). Commissioned by the violinist Michael Guttman, it is played on the disc by Guttman and Jofre with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. As well as the concerto, we also get three short duets for violin and bandoneon by Jofre.

The concerto is in three movements, an 'Introduction' leading to 'Allegro', 'Adagio' and then a cadenza leading to 'Milonga'. Inevitably, the ghost of Piazzolla hovers over the work, how could it not. After all, as well as playing Piazzolla's instrument, Jofre also studied with Julio Pane who had played bandoneon in the Astor Piazzolla Sextet. Perhaps Jofre's style is somewhat more lyrical and ruminative than Piazzolla's, there are dance rhythm hints here but Jofre takes quite a fluid view of rhythm and structure.

Ten years: Kings Place celebrates in style

Amazingly, Kings Place is ten years old and so well has the venue entered London's artistic consciousness that it feels as if it has been around for much longer. To celebrate the anniversary, Kings Place threw a party last night (11 October 2018) with artists, performers, people from the music business and members of the audience. 

There was a great deal on offer, as well as being superbly fed and watered there was a feast of entertainment too. And as with all the best parties, there was always something exciting happening elsewhere. We managed to catch Harry Christophers and the Sixteen performing Britten's Choral Dances from 'Gloriana', a responsory by John Sheppard and Tippett's Five Negro Spirituals from 'A Child of Our Time', cellist Matthew Barley and his string ensemble performing Brazilian dance music, and a set from Sonic Brew, an ensemble which included violinist Thomas Gould (on electric violin) and pianist Alex Curtis (who had also written a couple of the tunes). The music kicked off with the Royal Academy of Music Brass Ensemble playing fanfares, and the soul brass group, Brassroots played all around the atrium. There was much else besides, we managed to miss Juice Vocals, Sean Shibe and Ayanna Witter-Johnson, not to forget Ex-Easter Island Head, Denys Baptiste Trio, Ant Law |trio, Art of Moog and Kansas Smitty's House Band!

Here's to the next ten years.

Celebrating Black History Month

As part of Black History Month (which runs during October), the UK's leading multi-racial opera company Pegasus Opera (also my local opera company) is presenting a pair of performances of opera, musical theatre and African Song. On 13 October 2018, at Streatham Space Project, there is A Night with Pegasus Opera. Then on 23 October 2018, at the Assembly Room, Lambeth Town Hall, there is Celebrate Windrush: A Musical Voyage, with opera musical theatre and a Caribbean-inspired programme  which pays tribute to the Windrush generation, and there is authentic Caribbean food afterwards!

Performers include Alison Buchanan (artistic director of Pegasus Opera), Angela Caesar, Josephine Amanjwah, Adam Music, Chike Akwarandu, Keel Watson.

Alex Paxton's Noggin the Nog and the Whale

Remember Noggin the Nog? The TV series, and illustrated books, created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin telling the story of Noggin, who becomes King of the Nogs.

"In the lands of the North, where the Black Rocks stand guard against the cold sea, in the dark night that is very long, the Men of the Northlands sit by their great log fires and they tell a tale ... and those tales they tell are the stories of a kind and wise king and his people; they are the Sagas of Noggin the Nog. Welcome to Northlands, a tribute to Noggin, King of the Nogs and the People of the Northlands".

Young composer, Alex Paxton, has produced a community opera based on it, Noggin and the Whale with a narration by Oliver Postgate based on the T.V show. It was performed recently be massed forces including 500 children, produced by Pelican Music, and the above is a video of extracts from the performance.

Further details from Alex Paxton's website.