Sister Agnes and Sister Julian enjoy a tour of the Dove Tree Art Gallery and working studio with Harrogate artist Anita Bowerman
EVER since Harrogate artist Anita Bowerman held an
art class for nuns at a Yorkshire monastery, the Sisters have been vowing to
pay a visit to her Dove Tree studio.
The Sisters come from
a closed order of Benedictine nuns at Stanbrook Abbey in Wass, near The White
Horse at Kilburn.
Rules mean they do not
venture out from the monastery in the North York Moors National Park, unless an
urgent errand calls, and they are allowed only one day’s holiday a year.
The Sisters spend
their time praying and carrying out other religious and household duties within
the monastery.
While visiting one of
the Sisters at a care home in Harrogate, the nuns decided to fulfil their promise
and call in to Anita’s Dove Tree Art Gallery and studio in Back Granville Road, behind the Cardamom Black restaurant.
Sister Julian beside the “Eiffel Tower” white piano at Anita Bowerman’s Harrogate gallery and studio
Anita was delighted
to welcome the excited visitors and show them around. “It’s not every day you
get a visit from two nuns. I was delighted to see Sister Julian and Sister
Agnes and they loved my artwork.
“Sister Julian played
my white mini grand piano, which was said to have been used during the official
opening of the Eiffel Tower.”
Anita, artist-in-residence
at RHS Garden Harlow Carr in Harrogate, has visited Stanbrook Abbey three times
in the past few years. The nuns invited her to teach them how to make paper-cut
artworks, so they could revive this ancient art in their spare time.
She is especially
close to Sister Julian, who loves art, and the two have been painting together
just outside the monastery.
“I love visiting
Stanbrook Abbey; it’s so peaceful and fills you with tranquillity and
inspiration,” says Anita. “Sister Julian is working on some amazing gold-leaf
art illustrations and I’ve been able to gather together some art materials for
her.”
Anita Bowerman showing Sister Julian and and Sister Agnes around her Dove Tree gallery and studio
Sister Julian and Sister Agnes were in raptures
over this part of their day out beyond the monastery walls. Sister Julian says:
“It was a rare opportunity for us to do this and it had to coincide with a
visit to one of our Sisters in a care home nearby.
“As soon as we stepped through the door, large and
small paintings and marvellously intricate cut-out work adorned the walls and a
profusion of colour and variety of scene were a delight to see. Anita welcomed
us warmly and told us about her work as artist-in-residence at the RHS Garden
Harlow Carr.
“Anita’s love of nature and gardens was evident in
the paintings she had of scenes throughout the year, painted ‘en plein air’
using anything she can find, such as twigs, feathers, pebbles, leaves and grass.
“This gives an unusual quality to her work, not
seen elsewhere, and makes her work down to earth and original. It’s a small
gallery but bursting with life and I would recommend a visit if at all
possible.”
Richard Durrant: cycling from concert to concert en route from Orkney to Sussex. York awaits on June 14
THE National Centre for Early Music’s 20th
anniversary spring season in York opens not with the raising of a glass of
champagne, but with a Cuppa & A Chorus.
Led by community musician Chris Bartram, the 2pm to 4pm
session on February 24 is an opportunity to sing in a relaxed environment and
enjoy a cup of tea, a slice of cake and a friendly chat.
Up to 50 singers attend each monthly gathering to sing “songs you know and love and explore new ones from around the world”, and further sessions of “Connecting Through Singing” will follow on March 30, April 20, May 18 and June 22. The charge is £3.50 each time; booking is recommended and more details can be found at ncem.co.uk/cuppachorus.
Helen Charlston: taking part in the University of York Song Day on February 29. Picture: Ben McKee
2020’s concert programme opens with the University of York
Song Day, an afternoon and evening of three concerts under the title The Year
of Song on Leap Year Saturday, February 29. The focus falls on romantic lieder
in the 19th century company of Robert Schumann at 12.30pm; Robert
and Clare Schumann at 3pm and their protégé Johannes Brahms, along with Robert,
at 7pm.
Soprano Bethany Seympour, mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston,
tenor Gwilym Bowen and fortepiano player Peter Seymour perform the first and
last concerts; soprano Emily Tindall, bass Jonty Ward and fortepiano player
Nicky Losseff, the middle one.
Silent Films At The NCEM return with Franz Osten’s 1928 epic
Shiraz: A Romance Of India (cert U) on March 8 at 7.30pm, telling the story
behind the creation of the Taj Mahal, screened in a BFI restoration with a
score by Anoushka Shankar.
Acoustic Triangle: blurring the boundaries between classical, jazz music and the avant-garde on June 23
As part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival, running from May 5 to 17 with live music in village halls, theatres, cinemas and the NCEM, a double bill of Funny Business (U) at 4pm and The Woman One Longs For (PG) at 7pm will be shown on May 10.
Jonny Best’s piano accompanies Laurel & Hardy and comedy’s greatest female clown, Mabel Normand, in Funny Business; Best is joined by violinist Irine Rosnes for Curtis Bernhardt’s 1929’s German film, The Woman One Longs For, wherein Marlene Dietrich shines in her first starring role as a mysterious femme fatale in a steamy tale of erotic obsession.
Folk At The NCEM has two concerts to be presented in association with York’s Black Swan Folk Club: Urban Folk Quartet, supported by Stan Graham, on March 9 and Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman’s On Reflection show on April 22.
Jazz drummer Jeff Williams: in Bloom at the NCEM. Picture: Bob Hewson
Urban Folk Quartet’s high-energy, multi-instrumental
virtuosos Joe Broughton, Paloma Trigas, Tom Chapman and Dan Walsh combine
Celtic tunes and traditional song with Afrobeat, Indian classical, funk and
rock.
2020 marks 25 years of husband-and-wife duo Kathryn Roberts
and Sean Lakeman making music together. To celebrate this anniversary, they
take a whistle-stop tour through their past, revisiting and reinterpreting
songs from the early days of folk supergroup Equation to latest album Personae,
via a nod or two to their extra-curricular musical adventures.
Scottish traditional folk duo Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham,
who have toured together since 1986, play on March 29 and folk guitarist,
composer and ukulele player Richard Durrant returns to the NCEM on June 14 as
part of his Music For Midsummer tour that will take him 860 miles by bicycle
from Orkney to Sussex.
Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman: whistle-stop tour through 25 years of making folk music
On his fourth and longest Cycling Music adventure, travelling with his guitar and ukulele, he will be showcasing his new album Weald Barrows. “I’ll be cycling down from Orkney alone this year and this will, for me at least, introduce a magic and a concentration to the music,” says Durrant, whose 7.30pm concert will be featured in the York Festival of Ideas.
On May 25, the NCEM plays host to Youth Sampler Day from 11am to 4pm, a chance for 12 to 18-year-old musicians to play by ear, develop their creativity and discover more about the National Youth Folk Ensemble.
“This is a fantastic opportunity for young musicians to
learn from inspiring professional musicians, with no experience of folk music
necessary, and there’ll be opportunities to take part in a short audition for
the ensemble too,” says NCEM director Delma Tomlin.
Antonio Forcione: return visit to the National Centre for Early Music
Jazz At The NCEM presents the returning Italian guitarist Antonio Forcione on April 26; legendary London and New York drummer Jeff Williams’ Bloom trio, featuring pianist Carmen Staaf and bass guitarist Michael Formanek, on May 17, and University of York Jazz Orchestra, directed by James Mainwaring, with composer John Low on piano, in a May 29 programme spanning quasi-classical textures to full-on big band sounds.
The jazz line-up continues with innovative trumpet player and composer Byron Wallen’s Four Corners, with Rob Luft, on guitar, Paul Michael on bass and Rod Young on drums, on June 10, when they will be taking part in the York Music Forum Showcase too.
In a concert embraced by the York Festival of Ideas, Wallen
will be putting his new album Portrait in the spotlight, conceived when sitting
in the central square in Woolwich and being struck by the community around him
with its mixture of ages and nationalities. Wallen last played at the NCEM last
October as a member of Cleveland Watkiss’s band.
Trumpet player Byron Wallen: leading Four Corners at the NCEM. Picture: Urszula Tarasiewicz
Acoustic Triangle blur the boundaries between classical, jazz music and the avant-garde on their return to the NCEM on June 23 with their adventurous repertoire of compositions by band members Tim Garland (saxophone, bass clarinet) and Gwilym Simcock (piano), plus Kenny Wheeler, John Taylor, Bill Evans, Olivier Messiaen and Maurice Ravel. Double bassist Malcolm Creese completes their line-up.
World Sound At The NCEM welcomes more returnees, Scottish
combo Moishe’s Bagel, on March 27 with their cutting-edge, intoxicating,
life-affirming Eastern European and Middle Eastern folk and klezmer music.
Everything stops for tea at 7.30pm on June 9 in the second
World Sound event, Manasamitra’s Tea Houses: Camellia Sinensis, a show that
tells the story of tea as new live music mixes with lighting and soundscapes,
participatory tea rituals and ambisonic technology that captures the audience’s
emotional responses in the performance space.
Teatime at the NCEM in Manasamitra’s Tea Houses: Camellia Sinensis
Creator Supriya Nagarajan uses her experience of synaesthesia to explore the interplay between sight, sound, taste and smell in a multi-media show that directly engages the 7.30pm audience in a musical interpretation of a tea ceremony that now forms part of the York Festival of Ideas.
Early Music At The NCEM has two highlights: the Early Music Day on March 21 and the University of York Baroque Day on May 2.
Three concerts in one day make up the Early Music Day, featuring harpsichordist playing JS Bach’s 48 Preludes & Fugues Part 1 at 1pm at the NCEM; recorder ensemble Palisander, with the NCEM’s Minster Minstrels, presenting Double, Double Toil And Trouble at 3.30pm at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, and The Brabant Ensemble’s Cloistered Voices at 6pm at the NCEM. Previously known as the European Day of Music, the Early Music Day will be streamed across Europe.
Trumpet player Crispian Steele Perkins: performing at the University of York Baroque Day
The University of York Baroque Day is likewise divided into three concerts, taking the theme of Airs and Graces: A Musical Miscellany. At 12.30pm, trumpeter Crispian Steele Perkins joins Yorkshire Baroque Soloists for theatre music by Purcell and a flamboyant arrangement of Vivaldi’s La Follia; at 3pm, harpsichordist Masumi Yamamoto plays works by Handel, Scarlatti and Aime; the University Baroque Ensemble rounds off the day at 7pm with Scottish airs arranged by James Oswald and Geminiani.
Families At The NCEM brings Leeds company Opera North to York for 11.30am and 2pm performances of Dr Seuss’s Green Ham And Eggs in an introduction to opera for four to seven-year-old children and their families.
Two opera singers and a nine-piece orchestra begin their short
performance with an interactive workshop introducing families to the music,
instruments and themes within the piece, before they bring to musical life Dr
Seuss’s tale of the persistent Sam-I-Am’s mission to persuade a grumpy grouch
to try a delicious plate of green eggs and ham.
Sam Sweeney: playing the NCEM in the autumn
Looking ahead to the autumn, concerts in the NCEM diary already are folk trio Faustus (Benji Kirkpatrick, Saul Rose, Paul Sartin) on October 13; Chiaroscuro Quartet’s Mozart String Quartets, November 18; Unearth Repeat, with Sam Sweeney, Jack Rutter, Louis Campbell and Ben Nicholls, November 23, and Lady Maisery: Awake Arise, A Christmas Show For Our Times, with Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith, December 18.
In this 20th anniversary year, “this spring we
are undertaking an essential refurbishment programme, in part to upgrade some
of the facilities that are showing the strain of so much usage,” says Delma, as
new loos and a kitchen take shape.
“We’ll be celebrating the anniversary fully in the autumn, especially
with a commission that will engage Early music with digital technology and field
recordings from Askham Bog. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust will be involved, as will
gamba player Liam Byrne this autumn.”
Tickets for the NCEM spring season are on sale on 01904 658338 and at ncem.co.uk.
George Thorogood: Good To Be Bad tour date at York Barbican
GEORGE Thorogood & The Destroyers will play York Barbican on July 22 on their Good To Be Bad: 45 Years Of Rock tour, their first in more than seven years.
“Ever since our first shows there in 1978, the UK has been one of our
favourite places to play,” says boogie-blues guitarist Thorogood, from
Wilmington, Delaware, who will turn 70 on February 24.
“We’re talking great venues, great energy and truly great audiences, and
we’re looking forward to coming back for it all. Expect our best, because
that’s what you’re gonna get.”
Since 1975, Thorogood & The Destroyers have sold more than 15
million albums and played more than 8,000 ferocious live shows, built around Who
Do You Love, I Drink Alone, One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer, Move It On Over
and his definitive badass anthem, Bad To The Bone.
“To hear George Thorogood flail his slide
up and down his guitar,” wrote Greil Marcus in Rolling Stone magazine, “you
might have thought he was Ben Franklin – that he’d discovered not the blues,
but electricity.”
In the Destroyers’ line-up alongside Thorogood will
be Jeff Simon on percussion, Bill Blough on bass, Jim Suhler on guitar and
Buddy Leach on saxophone.”
Tickets can be booked from Friday (February 21) at 10am on 0203 356 5441, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.
Adam Martyn in rehearsal for his role as Nicholas Saunderson in No Horizon
RIGHT Hand Theatre’s No Horizon, a musical
about a Yorkshire science and maths genius, is on the horizon at York Theatre
Royal.
Staged at 7.30pm on April 9 and 2.30pm and 7.30pm on April 11 – there will be no performance on Good Friday – the show is inspired by the life of Nicholas Saunderson, a blind scientist and mathematician from Thurlstone, West Riding, who overcame impossible odds to become a Cambridge professor and friend of royalty.
Often described as an 18th
century Stephen Hawking, Saunderson was born on January 20 1682, losing his
sight through smallpox when around a year old. This did not prevent him,
however, from acquiring a knowledge of Latin and Greek and studying
mathematics.
As a child, he learnt to read by tracing the engravings on tombstones around St John the Baptist Church in Penistone, near Barnsley, with his fingers.
No Horizon premiered at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe, going on to draw an enthusiastic response from BBC Radio 2 presenter Chris Evans, who called it a “Yorkshire Les Mis”.
Now, the musical has been adapted for a 2020 northern tour by Right Hand Theatre, a company passionate about diversity and inclusivity within theatre. The cast has a 50/50 male/female balance, delivering the show in a gender-blind way with a female Isaac Newton, for example. Both the director and lead actor are visually impaired.
The role of Saunderson is played by the
partially sighted Adam Martyn, from Doncaster, who trained at Liverpool
Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA). The female lead role of Abigail goes to Yorkshire
born-and-bred, Rose Bruford College-trained Larissa Teale.
The cast is completed by Tom Vercnocke
as Joshua Dunn; Louise Willoughby as Anne Saunderson; Matthew Bugg as John
Saunderson; Ruarí Kelsey as Reverend Fox; Katie Donoghue and Olivia Smith as
Company.
The musical will be staged with a fresh
look by director Andrew Loretto; vocal coach Sally Egan; movement directors
Lucy Cullingford and Maria Clarke; costume designer Lydia Denno; costume maker
Sophie Roberts; lighting designer David Phillips and tour musical director
David Osmond.
No Horizon’s 2020 northern tour is funded by Arts
Council England and Foyle Foundation, co-commissioned by Cast, Doncaster and
The Civic, Barnsley, and supported by Sheffield Royal Society for the Blind.
Tickets are on sale on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; April 9’s performance will be audio described, a Q&A will follow that night’s show.
Deluxe dancers: Ballet Boyz on tour with a new show in the spring
BALLETBOYZ are celebrating their 20th
anniversary with a spring tour of Deluxe, visiting the Grand Opera House, York,
on April 28.
This new show fuses beautiful dance
with original music, including collaborations from “some of the world’s most
inventive and thought-provoking choreographers and composers”, in a
co-production with Sadler’s Wells.
Shanghai
dancer and choreographer Xie Xin, artistic director of Xiexin Dance
Theatre, will make her British debut choreographing a new piece set to an
original electronic score by Jiang Shaofeng.
Punchdrunk
associate director Maxine Doyle will present work to live jazz music by
composer Cassie Kinoshi, of the Mercury Prize-nominated SEED Ensemble.
BalletBoyz artistic directors Michael
Nunn and William Trevitt say: “Deluxe is going to be a night of entertaining
and thought-provoking theatre that’s been 20 years in the making. The beauty of
our job has always been about finding and pursuing extraordinary talent and
sharing that with as many people as we can. It’s that simple.”
Over the past 20 years. BalletBoyz have
made 38 pieces of new work for the stage, won 13 international awards and
collaborated with 25 choreographers, Christopher Wheeldon, Akram Khan, Kristen
McNally, Matthew Bourne and Liv Lorent among them.
In the BalletBoyz line-up will be Joseph
Barton, Benjamin Knapper, Harry Price, Liam Riddick, Matthew Sandiford, Will
Thompson and apprentice Dan
Baines.
Looking ahead, in the autumn BalletBoyz
will undertake a new digital project in the wake of their award-winning dance
films Young Men and Romeo And Juliet.
Tickets for April 28’s 7.30pm show are on sale at £13 upwards on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.
Gerry Grant making one of the pots for smashing at Fangfoss Pottery
IT sounds potty,
but Fangfoss potter Gerry Grant is making pots expressly to be broken.
“I’ve just landed
my most unusual job yet,” he says. “I’ve been commissioned by York company Pick
Me Up Theatre to make some props for next week’s production of The Goat, or Who
Is Sylvia?.
“What’s so unusual
about this request is that they’ve asked me to make a selection of very
large pots that will be smashed to pieces on the stage.”
These pots are made for breaking: Gerry Grant with the pottery that Pick Me Up Theatre’s cast will pick up to smash at next week’s performances
Presented by Pick Me
Up at the John Cooper Studio, Theatre @41 Monkgate, York, from February 25 to
29, Edward Albee’s American play centres around Martin Gray, a successful,
middle-aged architect who has just turned 50 and leads an ostensibly ideal life
with his loving wife, Stevie, and gay teenage son, Billy.
However, when he
confides to his best friend that he also is in love with a goat named Sylvia, he
sets in motion events that will destroy his family and leave his life in
tatters.
Albee’s domestic drama ponders the limits of an ostensibly
liberal society, showing a family in crisis to challenge audience members to question
their own moral judgment of social taboos.
The Goat cast members Bryan Bounds, Will Fealy and Susannah Baines
Director Mark Hird says: “The pottery plates, vases and bowls are an
integral part of the show. They represent wealth, prosperity and order in a
seemingly perfect household.
“They are expensive works of art collected by world-famous architect
Martin Gray to furnish the living room of the family’s New York home – and
they’re smashed when Stevie confronts Martin after discovering his affair with
Sylvia, the goat.”
Gerry has run Fangfoss Pottery for 43 years with wife Lyn Grant at The
Old School, Fangfoss, near York, and never before has he received such a destructive
commission.
“The pots have been specially made and fired to break easily,” says potter Gerry Grant. “I do hope they perform the task well”
“I’ve tried for more than 40 years to produce pots that are sturdy and
not easily broken. Now I’ve been asked to do the opposite! The pots have been
specially made and fired to break easily. I do hope they perform the task well.”
The Goat caused controversy but was a big hit – much like the pottery
breaking – with Broadway audiences when it opened in 2002. So much so, it won
the Tony Award for best play, 40 years after writer Albee won the same prize
for Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf.
Next week marks its York premiere, when Gerry will witness his pots
being broken on the 41 Monkgate stage. “I’m looking forward to seeing the play,”
he says. “I’m sure it will be a smashing production”.
Tickets for the 7.30pm performances are on sale at pickmeuptheatre.com and on 01904 623568.
Alfie Boe: performing at Scarborough Open Air Theatre for a fourth time
CHART-TOPPING tenor Alfie Boe will bring Armed Forces Day to a climax on June 27 with a 6pm concert at Scarborough Open Air Theatre.
The East Coast resort has the honour of hosting this year’s Armed Forces Day National Event that day.
Around 200,000 people, including members of the Royal Family and prominent
politicians, are expected to head to Scarborough for a series of events to
honour the dedication and sacrifice of the nation’s servicemen and women.
Boe says: “It is an amazing honour, as well as a huge thrill, for me to
be back at this wonderful venue to perform on Armed Forces Day.
“I’ve played there many times and I’ve always received such a warm
welcome from the good people of Yorkshire. The fact I will be performing as
part of Scarborough’s hosting of Armed Forces Day’s National Event will make it
even more special. I cannot wait for June 27; it will be an amazing evening.”
Mezzo-soprano Laura Wright, who has performed at major events
around the world, will be among those to join Boe on stage.
Boe, who has starred in stellar productions of Les Misérables and La Bohème, will be appearing at Scarborough OAT for the fourth time. He headlined Armed Forces Day concerts there in 2015 and 2018 and performed alongside his friend and collaborator in song, Michael Ball, in 2017.
He and Ball will next sing in Yorkshire at Leeds First Direct Arena on February
25. On his return in June, he will combine familiar favourites with selections
from last November’s celebration of songs of the 1930s and 1940s, As Time Goes
By, his first solo record since 2015.
Mezzo-soprano Laura Wright: joining Alfie Boe at the Armed Forces Day concert
Recorded with Grammy award winner Gordon Goodwin and his Big
Phat Band, the album journeyed through the defining songs of that golden
era, from the full force of Sing Sing Sing to the smooth The Way You Look
Tonight and title track.
Laura Wright, who topped the classical album chart with her debut, The
Last Rose, is writing and recording her seventh album. At 24, she composed the
Invictus Games anthem, Invincible, for Prince Harry and two years
later wrote Heroes, the first official anthem for England Women’s Cricket, and then
Brave for the Military Wives.
She became the first ever official singer of the England Rugby Union team
and has sung at the Rugby Union World Cup, the NFL series, the Grand National at
Aintree, Royal Ascot and the FA Cup Final.
Looking forward to presenting Boe on June 27, Peter Taylor, director of Scarborough OAT concert promoters Cuffe and Taylor, says: “Alfie is massively popular and is someone we are asked to bring back every year, so we are delighted to be welcoming him back to Scarborough OAT this summer.
“June 27 will be an extra-special night as the nation’s focus will be on Scarborough. It is such an honour to host the Armed Forces Day National Event and so we really could not think of anyone better to headline this concert than Alfie, who will be joined by the wonderful Laura Wright.
“It will
undoubtedly be an incredibly moving and special concert and, we feel, the
perfect climax to a day that celebrates the dedication and sacrifice of our
Armed Forces.”
Stuart
Clark, Scarborough OAT venue manager and event manager for the Armed Forces Day
National Event, says: “Alfie Boe is a firm favourite here and we are delighted
to welcome him back in 2020. His show will be a highlight of the prestigious
Armed Forces Day National Event in Scarborough and a wonderful musical
celebration dedicated to our Armed Forces.”
Tickets will go on general sale on Friday (February 21) at 9am at
scarboroughopenairtheatre.com; on 01723 818111 and 01723
383636, or in person from the Scarborough OAT box office, in Burniston Road, or
the Discover Yorkshire Coast Tourism Bureau, at Scarborough Town Hall, St Nicholas
Street.
For more information and a full list of Armed Forces Day 2020 events in Scarborough, go to scarborougharmedforcesday.co.uk.
Alfie Boe: lighting up Scarborough Open Air Theatre on June 27
SCARBOROUGH OPEN AIR THEATRE’s 2020 LINE-UP
Tuesday, June 9, Lionel Richie
Wednesday, June 17, Westlife
Saturday, June 20, Supergrass
Saturday, June 27, Alfie Boe
Saturday, July 4,Snow
Patrol
Friday, July 10,Mixtape,
starring Marc Almond, Heaven 17 and Living In A Box featuring Kenny Thomas
REVIEW: Albany Piano Trio,
British Music Society of York, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York,
February 14 ***
GHOSTS are not generally associated with St Valentine’s Day, but orchids certainly could be. We had both in the Albany Piano Trio’s outing for the British Music Society of York, with the headily perfumed trio by Ravel and some romantic seasoning by Bloch thrown in for good measure.
The
“Ghost” arrived courtesy of Beethoven’s Trio, Op 70 No 1, whose nickname it is
(though conferred by Czerny, not by the composer). There was plenty of
violence, as there should be, in the opening movement. But the players seemed
to be ploughing their own furrows and ensemble was not always as exact as it
might have been.
It
was just as well that Philippa Harrison kept her piano lid on the short stick
rather than wide open: she was in forceful mood all evening. Indeed, she was
regularly more characterful than her colleagues, who laboured very competently
but with intermittent ardour. But all three found the requisite ferocity for
the coda.
The
unnerving variations of the eerie slow movement were a little apologetic.
Beethoven does not hold back here, neither should performers. But its demons
were revived in the finale, thanks to the piano’s strong accents. They were
finally driven out by high cello and low violin – after some skeletal
pizzicatos – as the composer’s sardonic humour turned friendly at the close.
Victorian
“orchidelirium” – a mania for discovering and collecting orchids – inspired
Judith Bingham’s The Orchid And Its Hunters, an Albany commission that the trio
premiered in 2016. Its five brief sections are vignettes evoking dangerous
journeys to garner these exotic flowers from remote locations worldwide.
Their
diffuse colourings suggested impressionistic water-colours rather than
full-blown oils. They became gradually brisker as wide intervals and splashy
piano chords became smoother and, eventually, more urgent, as if the flowers
were under threat. The Albany were surefooted throughout, taking the changes in
their stride.
Swiss
by birth, Bloch wrote his only work for piano trio in 1924, the year he became
an American citizen. His Three Nocturnes proved rather engaging, largely
romantic and lyrical, though the percussive syncopation of the last one hinted
at modernity.
The
first movement of Ravel’s Piano Trio was the Albany’s best moment, its jumpy
rhythms clean and its acceleration finely calibrated. Pantoum, which follows,
became a volatile, piano-drive harlequinade, sharply contrasted with the
chorale-like Passacaille. Vigorous piano in the finale suggested fountains
spraying wildly in a gusty wind. This was all but a full-blown piano concerto.
The
Albany did enough to show that they are capable of considerable finesse. Not
enough of it was on show here, however. And they would be well advised to let
their fingers do the talking in place of under-prepared, under-projected spoken
intros. The Lyons is not a good place for speech.
Cellist Jamie Walton: “skill of a practised magician”. Picture: Wolf Marloh
REVIEW: York Guildhall Orchestra,
40th Anniversary Concert, York Barbican, February 15 *****
HAD I not been there myself, I
would have hardly believed that the Guildhall Orchestra (as it was then known
and is still popularly described) first saw the light of day 40 years ago.
It has been a marvellous four
decades. And still there is a sense of excited anticipation before its every
performance. We know we are in for something special.
Saturday’s
celebration, conducted by Simon Wright, was no exception. A Ravel suite, an
Elgar concerto and a Brahms symphony were leavened by a birthday cake of Celebratory
Fantasy Variations baked by the founder himself, John Hastie.
His tasty pastiche wove myriad
musical allusions – including Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Ravel, Vaughan Williams,
Britten, even a samba – into variations on Happy Birthda’. As the piece finished,
the audience even got to join in with the song’s last line (wisely, after a
rehearsal). Good fun.
Ravel’s
Mother Goose featured on the opening night in 1980. Here it was again in all
its gentle finery, giving us a chance to admire again the nicely controlled
talents of the woodwinds: sinuous oboe for Tom Thumb’s walk, for example, and
clarinet and contrabassoon representing Beauty and the Beast, not forgetting
nifty xylophone (Janet Fulton) and rippling harp (Georgina Wells).
We
are fortunate indeed to have a cellist of international standing living right
on the edge of the North York Moors. Jamie Walton must have played Elgar’s
concerto countless times, but surely never as spellbindingly as this.
He achieved his intensity,
paradoxically, through subtle understatement, drawing in his audience with the
skill of a practised magician. The opening was steeped in a very English
melancholy. The jagged figure at the start of the Allegro spoke volumes about
the scherzo to come and Walton’s clarity at the top of his range was startling.
The
slow movement was beautifully, mouth-wateringly, spacious. Every rest was made
to count, delicately caressed. This kind of playing is risky: it can easily
backfire. Not here. Walton was exactly on Elgar’s wavelength, finding solace in
an elegant cantilena.
Fireworks, such as they were, came
in the finale, but nostalgia was never far from the surface, not least when the
work’s opening motto was rekindled just before the close. All the while, the
orchestra kept in very crisp attendance, typified by the brass interjections in
the finale. I have heard this work dozens of times, but was never quite
persuaded of its logic. Until now. The conjunction of two such intelligent
musicians as Simon Wright and Jamie Walton delivered an intricate precision
that is extremely rare. It will live in the memory.
Inevitably,
perhaps, Brahms’s Second Symphony was not going to reach quite this level. But
it brought catharsis of a kind, while showcasing the orchestra’s three choirs:
strings, winds and brass. Violin ensemble in the first movement had a wonderful
sweep, conjuring pastoral moods; they were enhanced by Jonny Hunter’s solo
horn. The cumulative effect of this huge movement was majestic. Not to be
outdone the cellos, who are in equally fine fettle, took centre stage in an
introspective Adagio.
The
paint-box of the orchestra, the woodwinds, enjoyed their moment in the
spotlight in the Allegretto, sparkling into a sunlit momentum and recapturing
it again at the finish after several distractions. Showing admirable stamina,
the whole orchestra combined for a finale of exuberant brilliance, reaching a
peak when the trombones returned in the coda.
This
orchestra is one of the treasures that makes living in York such a delight.
Roll on its half century!
ROMEO Stodart, lead singer and principal songwriter for The Magic Numbers, will play as a one-man band at The Basement, City Screen, York, tomorrow night (February 17).
“I’ve decided to do a few solo shows mainly because I’ve never done them before, so it’ll be a very different and new experience for me,” says Romeo, 43.
“I’ve got so many pieces of music that haven’t yet found a home, as they’re not necessarily Magic Numbers songs, and I think it’d be a great opportunity to play them and bring them to life in front of people.”
Romeo wants his solo gigs to be unique, liberating, intimate and engaging. “I need you to be there for them with an open mind and open heart,” he says. “There’s nothing to fear as our band is forever, but I’m really excited by these dates. Hope you are too.
“You can hear what some of our songs sound like in the way that they were first conceived or a new interpretation, but the main emphasis will be on the new and the journey of the night.”
Formed in Ealing in 2002, The Magic Numbers have five albums to their name: 2005’s million-selling, Mercury Music Prize-nominated, self-titled debut; 2006’s Those The Brokes; 2010’s The Runaway, 2014’s Alias and 2018’s Outsiders.
Making up the Numbers are two pairs of brothers and sisters: Sean and Angela Gannon and Romeo and Michele Stodart, who were born to Scottish father and Portuguese mother on the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago, where their mother was an opera singer with her own TV show.
Tomorrow’s 8pm concert is presented by York promoters Under The Influence; tickets for An Evening With Romeo Stodart cost £14 on 0871 902 5726, at thebasementyork.co.uk/romeo-stodart or on the door.
