Ailish Tynan and Christopher Glynn, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, May 3
I ABSOLUTELY love Schumann’s Liederkreiss: a sublime marriage of Eichendorff’s poems.
This performance by Irish soprano Ailish Tynan and pianist Christopher Glynn was simply superb; the songs fresh and full of insight, of rediscovery.
In Der Fremde had that remoteness, palpable longing, a heartfelt intermezzo and the oh-so-delicately delivered Mondnacht, with the delicious, gentle melodic embellishments. And then, not sure when, three things happened to jolt me out of this musical love-in.
A young lady in front decided to check for text messages; this suddenly morphed into a coughing fit by the singer, and the resuming cycle was in English; albeit an impressive translation by Jeremy Sams (commissioned by Christopher Glynn). I was so immersed, captivated by the performance, I hadn’t realised. Some reviewer, eh?
The recital had opened with Grieg’s Sechs Lieder. What was obvious from the outset was the instinctive musical chemistry between the performers. For example, the genuine sense of fun and cheeky exchanges in Lauf der Welt, the quietly driven urgency and touching reflection of Goethe’s Zur Rosenzeit and blending of vocal line and piano accompaniment in the closing Ein Traum.
Much of the second half was dedicated to settings of James Joyce. Bridge’s Goldenhair was fluent and hugely enjoyable, Barber’s Solitary Hotel came across as sultry, smouldering music-making with a passionate tango-influenced accompaniment.
Pianist Christopher Glynn
But the most rewarding was John Cage’s The Wonderful Widow Of Eighteen Springs. Ms Tynan sang the minimalist vocal line without any vibrato; it sounded like an elegant sacred chant.
Christopher Glynn’s percussive commentary – hitting the lid or other parts of the piano in a variety of ways with his fingers and knuckles – was so nuanced, almost ritualistic. The performance had an other-worldly quality, which gently dramatised Joyce’s nocturnal, expressive text.
The sexy, Spanish dancing lady was flirtatiously animated by Ms Tynan in a much-appreciated encore. Personally, I would have left the last word with Joyce and Edmund Pendleton’s Bid Adieu; a moving farewell with a lovely soft landing.
All of which doesn’t lead me to the performance of Strauss’s Four Lieder, op.27, but here we are. The performance was simply sublime. Ruhe, Meine Seele was latent with expectation, simmering with sadness.
In Cäcilie, the floodgates opened in an almost operatic outpouring of emotion. The idiomatic pianism and, at times, telling recitative delivery in Heimliche Aufforderung were really effective.
But it was the performance of Morgen! that moved me to the core, as it always does. A most exquisite piano opening by Christopher Glynn, then the bleeding in of Ms Tynan’s vocal line into the piano narrative producing a deeply touching musical image of lyrical togetherness. Magical. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop at the close.
The damaged young lovers: Jenna Innes’s Veronica Sawyer and Jacob Fowler’s Jason ‘JD’ Dean in Heathers The Musical, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Pamela Raith
DEAR Diary, American school shootings keep mounting up, like Donald Trump lawsuits.
Meanwhile, Heathers The Musical grows darker still, more resonant than ever, 34 years since Michael Lehmann’s savagely satirical, subversive cult 1989 teen movie swaggered in: an iconoclastic all-American high-school black comedy with Winona Ryder and Christian Slater appeal and a died-too-young death toll to rival Romeo And Juliet.
On press night for the cult show’s first York visit, the Grand Opera House is stuffed to the brim, mainly a young crowd, the late-teen and early twenties’ “Corn Nuts”, almost all female, plus some mums, a few stray men. It will be the same all week, but with better ticket availability at the matinees.
As with The Rocky Horror Show, they know the code, not only the Heathers dress code but the performative code too, hollering at the first sighting of the too-cool-for-school, ever-so-cruel trio of Heathers in silhouette, backs to the audience in stockings, miniskirts and buttoned blazers, topped off with scrunchies, in 1989 Sherwood, Ohio.
Here comes Westerberg High School’s dead-mean clique with their croquet-mallet disdain: leader Heather Chandler (Mountview Academy 2022 graduate Verity Thompson) in red, her aspirant acolyte Heather Duke (Elise Zavou) in green and the inwardly anguished Heather McNamara (Billie Bowman) in yellow.
Lit separately in their iconic colours – courtesy of Ben Cracknell’s ace lighting design – they are cheered to the rafters, and yet they represent the apogee of the dysfunctional school’s stultifying culture of derision, bullying, eating disorders, body dysmorphia and homophobia that leads to contemplation of suicide.
Looking on, like a grumpy janitor at this freshman’s party, you might shake your head in bewilderment at those deafening cheers, but Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s musical, like Lehmann’s film before it, turns out to be savvy, sassy, switched on, unlike the blinkered school principal (Jay Bryce’s Gowan) or misguided teacher (Katie Payne’s Ms Fleming). SIX The Musical has since tapped into the same vibe.
The hateful Heathers: Elise Zavou’s Heather Duke, left, Verity Thompson’s Heather Chandler and Billie Bowman’s Heather McNamara in Heathers The Musical
Part school inspector’s report, part cautionary tale, but explosively, darkly comical too, with knowing references to Baudelaire, Sylvia Plath and Morrissey, Heathers sings of making the world beautiful in its opening number and carries that hope beyond the graves, and maybe it is the hope that kills.
How can an average joanna of a pupil thrive in such a dangerously competitive school suffused with toxicity? Meet Veronica Sawyer (Jenna Innes), just another nobody dreaming of better days at 17 until her misappropriation of a hall pass prompts the Heathers to take her under their cliquey wing for her skills of deception.
But what is the price of popularity amid the adolescent angst, turf wars, underdogs and bitches of the school room? Enter mysterious teen rebel Jason ‘JD’ Dean (former head boy Jacob Fowler), forever dressed in outsider black, newly arrived in Sherwood with his “deconstruction worker” psycho dad.
JD has one school lesson for Veronica: “while it might kill to be a high school nobody, it is murder being a somebody,” he rules. So begins a twisted teen relationship, as unhealthy as his love of slushy drinks, one where his desire to make school a better place can only end very differently to a jocund John Hughes movie from that era.
Displaying a resolute spirit to break the monopoly of priapic sports jocks and hateful Heathers carries fatal consequences for Veronica once she hooks up with JD on his path from mystery to misery, rebel strut to sinister, vengeful sociopath killer.
O’Keefe and Murphy take a macabre story of broken childhoods, bullying and bulimia, shootings and suicide, then add sassy lyrics and knockout music rich with drama, cheese and brutally honest balladry for an impact on an operatic scale, complemented by dialogue to die for: snappy, cynical, mardy, funny, or seriously troubling, whatever the mood.
At the helm of this classroom and locker-room teen drama is American screen and stage director Andy Fickman, who steers its adrenalised, dead-funny yet poignant path with the right balance of droll, dark and daft humour, pathos, noir cool, fun and fear (of failure, abuse and life itself).
Roll call: The Heathers The Musical 2023 tour cast on stage in the Westerberg High School hall
Choreographer Gary Lloyd, whose West End panache graced York Stage’s pantomime Jack And The Beanstalk in December 2020, brings the crackle of electricity to his bravura routines, especially when the Heathers go hell for Heather.
The ensemble has a ball too, especially in Big Fun, and nothing beats My Dead Gay Son, its camp abandon perfect for Eurovision week, opening the second half with a jolt of unexpected levity as Kurt’s Dad (Bryce) and Ram’s Dad (Conor McFarlane) suddenly get it on – spoiler alert – at their funeral.
Fickman’s direction, as much as Murphy and O’Keefe’s book, spreads the spotlight’s gaze beyond Innes’s steely girl-next-door, Veronica, and Fowler’s magnetic JD, a gothic brooder from a black-and-white B-movie in an otherwise Pop Art-coloured world. Her singing voice is assertive and yearning; his can enchant or ensnare like a snake with its beguiling beauty.
Red could be the only colour for Thompson’s viperous leader Heather Chandler, a warning sign of venom, but it is all a front for the needy insecurity within.
The broadest comic performances come from Alex Woodward and Morgan Jackson’s dunderheaded dudes Kurt Kelly and Ram Sweeney, sports jerks who turn into a camp-comedy double act once stripped to their jocks.
Where Heathers nails it is in its exploration of the needle between pupils and the damage done. Both Veronica and JD sing of being “really damaged”, but the damage is widespread, best expressed in the vulnerable song cameos from Bowman’s disillusioned Heather McNamara (Lifeboat) and Kingsley Morton’s neglected and mocked Martha “Dumptruck” Dunnstock (Kindergarten Boyfriend).
David Shields’ mobile designs shout Eighties’ USA; Will Joy’s musical direction rocks; Heathers receives a mark of 8/10. Class dismissed.
Heathers The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, 2.30pm and 7.30pm today; 7.30pm tomorrow; 2.30pm and 7.30pm Saturday. Box office: atgtickets.com/york
Not always seeing eye to eye: Nuno Queimado’s May and Emma Thornett’s Fly in one version of Gus Gowland’s Mayflies at York Theatre Royal. Picture: Sam Taylor
OH, the app-hazard nature of modern love under Covid’s black cloud.
You shadow box tenderly, tentatively, expectantly, for two years online after dating app initiations, then finally meet for one fateful night in a seaside hotel, shedding skins as much as clothes, a knockout blow that turns the morning after into the mourning after. The chatter, then the shatter.
All this mirrors gone-in-24-hours life of the mayfly (the insect here making an appearance on the cover of May’s jigsaw, Mayfly On River, Germany).
What a brief breath of life in flight, after up to two years spent twiddling thumbs and knotting scarves in gestation underwater, only to crash and burn on impact.
York Theatre Royal artist-in-residence Gus Gowland’s musical world premiere has followed a similar path of anticipation. Already an award winner for Pieces Of String (Mercury Theatre, Colchester, 2018), he had tantalised York audiences with five-minute showcase contributions to Love Bites in 2021 and Green Shoots in 2022, and now the wait is over.
Be assured, Mayflies will not die after one day (or three if you choose to see all three configurations of Tania Azevedo’s flexible casting). An afterlife is deserved by Gowland’s concept, book and songs alike.
Gowland eschews burdening his putative lovers with defined gender, race, sexual orientation or age, further extending its potential shelf life.
For +Juliet director Azevedo’s premiere, two from three will perform in any show. It could be Nuno Queimado’s May with Emma Thornett’s Fly; Rumi Sutton’s Fly with Queimado’s May or Sutton’s May in a gay coupling with Thornett’s Fly. Clear so far?
Raising a glass: Rumi Sutton’s May and Emma Thornett’s Fly in a second configuration of Mayflies. Picture: Sam Taylor
It is not essential to see all three combinations, but the potential of both Gowland’s book and in particular his songs are better revealed the more pairings you meet, rather than only one match of the day. Both the idealistic Fly’s restless urges in Looking Back and realist May’s pile of relationship debris in Running On Empty will fly, whoever sings them. Queimado’s account of that heartrending ballad is especially affecting.
As much as the mayfly is Gowland’s motif for a love affair’s arc from joy to sorrow, matched by the mayfly hanging lamps’ choreographed movements in TK Hay’s design, equally significant is May’s love of jigsaw puzzles, one of the quirky revelations that builds a picture of a character.
The audience is invited to piece the jigsaw together, not without a picture, but with the extra challenge of Gowland detailing the relationship in both flashbacks and flashforwards.
As with jigsaw pieces, some scenes have jagged edges, others are rounded, and gradually the full picture emerges before the pieces are put back in the box for reassembling in different hands (as the magician’s flourish of a finale portends).
Just as the casting presents differing versions of the coupling, so Gowland highlights how we present differing versions of ourselves depending on the circumstances. Which is the truthful version: the one played out online, at a distance, or in the compression, the intensity, the heat of the moment, in that hotel hothouse?
Does May not want children, as is revealed at the hotel, or want them, as had been indicated in passing conversation online? Preferences on custard creams or shortbread, pizza consumption and more besides provoke doubts on what may have been said and whether it matters whose recollection is right.
Where goofy awkwardness has never blighted them behind the online shield, once May and Fly are together, in that room, wondering what to do next – whether and when to make a move, watch TV, eat a biscuit, order pizza – the sheer ordinariness of it all has the tea cup stain of familiarity that elicits both humour from cringy own goals and vulnerable deeper emotions in Gowland’s dialogue as he walks the tightrope between warm-hearted romcom and angsty kitchen-sink drama.
The best speech – and the longest – goes to Fly, an epistle to love, to connection, to being a “defining feature in someone else’s story”, that signals the death knell to May and Fly and has you thinking, not for the first time, “Shut up, please shut up, you’re blowing this”, but also recognising the truths within the compulsive behaviour.
The juddering rhythms of the staccato scenes, a fusillade of snapshots that go to the heart, are countered by beautiful, choreographed scene changes where May and Fly entwine, flit flirtatiously or throw a prop from one to the other as if living their best life.
In the heat of the long-awaited moment: Nuno Queimado’s May and Rumi Sutton’s Fly in the third pairing of Mayflies. Picture: Sam Taylor
The songs, closer to Sondheim and Willy Russell than Lloyd Webber, contain wit, authorial wisdom and sometimes withering truths, ranging in content from conversational to confessionally dramatic, from playful, wishful or jousting duets to hopeful or wistful internal monologues.
Gowland doesn’t write OTT chart bangers, but consistently his storytelling songs – intelligent, incisive, funny or poignant – have an impact. Tellingly, Queimado, Sutton and Thornett find full expression in their nuances.
Azevedo’s direction is both musical and lyrical, orchestrating scenes as much as directing them, complemented by musical director’s Joseph Church’s lean, clean arrangements for his piano and Joel Benedict’s guitar.
This intricate but never ornate production is full of work of the highest standard, not only from the performances that can switch from charming to charmless, funny to foot in mouth, thoughtful to thoughtless in both characters, but also in Chris Whybrow’s sound designs and David Howe’s lighting, in turn transforming from warm to chill to match the ever-changing moods.
T K Hay’s breath-taking set design for Nick Payne’s multiverse in Constellations last November at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre whetted the appetite for his creativity for Mayflies. The profusion of ever-moving mayfly lamps delights, while he cleverly wraps a standard-fare hotel room inside multi-levelled building blocks, with a staircase leading to a balcony/kitchenette above.
This enhances the contrast between their online ‘connectivity’ in separate spaces – using the Theatre Royal stage to the full – and the sudden sardine-tin claustrophobia of the hotel.
Previously Gowland played with time, setting Pieces Of String simultaneously in the 1940s and present day (just as Alan Ayckbourn did in The Girl Next Door in 2021). Now he joins Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years and University of York alumnus Payne’s Constellations in giving differing perspectives on the path and fragile nature of love, the greater truths emerging from the writer rather than his players on life’s stage. How wonderful if Mayflies could match their success.
What’s more, just as Fly says there is a difference between running and knowing when to leave, so Gowland judges his running time spot on at 90 minutes of longing, loss and love in its all ridiculous yet enriching madness.
Mayflies, York Theatre Royal, tonight, 7.30pm (Emma & Rumi); Thursday, 2pm (Nuno & Emma) and 7.30pm (Rumi & Nuno); Friday, 7.30pm (Emma & Rumi); Saturday, 2.30pm (Nuno & Emma) and 7.30pm (Rumi & Nuno). Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
Mayflies composer, lyricist and writer Gus Gowland, seated, with cast members Emma Thornett, left, Rumi Sutton and Nuno Queimado
FLUTE ensemble Flaute Felice return to St Chad’s Church, Campleshon Road, York, for May 25’s Dementia Friendly Tea Concert.
“You may remember the varied and enjoyable concert that they gave last year, so we are very much looking forward to hearing from them again,” says co-organiser Alison Gammon.
“As usual, there will be about 45 minutes of music, followed by tea, coffee and homemade cakes in the church hall.”
The church has a small car park and on-street parking is available along Campleshon Road. “But it can get busy, so do allow plenty of time,” advises Alison. “If you are more mobile, it would really help if you could park on the street to allow for disabled parking in the car park. “Wheelchair access is via the church hall.”
The dementia-friendly event has a relaxed format. “It is ideal for people who may not feel comfortable at a formal classical concert, so we don’t mind if the audience wants to talk or move about,” says Alison.
“Seating is unreserved and there is no charge, although donations are welcome. We give the hire cost to the church and the rest goes to Alzheimer’s charities.”
Musicians are booked for all of 2023’s programme of monthly 2.30pm concerts, held on Thursdays. June 15 features Myrna Michell and David Hammond, piano duet and soprano; July 20, Phillip Sangwine, organ; August 17, Alison and Robert Gammon, clarinet and piano; September 21, Billy Marshall and Robert Gammon, French horn and piano; October 19, Julia Elliott and Peter Harrison, poetry reading and flute; November 16, Giocoso Wind Ensemble, and December 7, Ripon Resound Choir (Christmas concert).
Heathers The Musical: Too cool for school at Grand Opera House, York. Picture: Pamela Raith
FROM a dead-cool musical to a ‘Sueperfan’, a Strictly ten to guitar pyrotechnics, Charles Hutchinson has tips on how to have a better week.
School outing of the week: Heathers The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees
WELCOME to Westerberg High, 1989, where Veronica Sawyer (played by Jenna Innes) is just another nobody craving a better day, until she joins the beautiful and impossibly cruel Heathers. Now her dreams of popularity may finally come true.
Enter mysterious teen rebel Jason ‘JD’ Dean (Jacob Fowler), who teaches her that it might kill to be a nobody, but it is murder being a somebody in Andy Fickman’s touring production with electrifying choreography by Gary Lloyd. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
Federico Pendenza: Lunchtime concert at St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel
Tributes of the week: York Late Music, Reginald Smith Brindle, 1pm today; Sir Harrison Birtwistle: A New Matrix, 7.30pm today, St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel, York
YORK Late Music pays tribute to two British composers, both Lancastrian, one a major name, the other an unjustly forgotten figure surely due for a revival.
The lunchtime programme celebrates the work of Reginald Smith Brindle, best known for his solo guitar work. Guitarist Federico Pendenza plays four works by Smith Brindle, pieces by Poulenc and a Chris Gander world premiere.
The evening’s tribute to Sir Harrison Birtwistle, based around the clarinet, acknowledges the work of York musician Alan Hacker, his musical associate. Works by Birtwistle, Messaien and Peter Maxwell Davies will be complemented by short pieces composed following Birtwistle’s death in April 2021. Box office: latemusic.org or on the door.
Lulo Reinhardt & Yuliya Lonskaya: Guitar duo at the NCEM
Guitar duo of the week: Lulo Reinhardt & Yuliya Lonskaya, National Centre for Early Music, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm
LULO Reinhardt, from Koblenz, Germany, is the grandnephew of Django Reinhardt. As to be expected, Lulo has a repertoire of gypsy swing, but he has extended his musical horizons to embrace music from North Africa and India.
Yuliya Lonskaya, from Mogilev, Belarus, performs her own style of classic, folk, jazz and bossa nova arrangements. Together they make beautiful music. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
Katie Melua: Love & Money tour date at York Barbican
Singer-songwriter gig of the week: Katie Melua, Love & Money Tour, York Barbican, Monday, 7.30pm
KATIE Melua, the Georgian-born, West London-based singer-songwriter, returns to York Barbican to promote her ninth album, March 2023’s Love & Money, 20 years on from her chart-topping debut, Call Off The Search.
Melua, 38, will combine such hits as The Closest Thing To Crazy, Call Off The Search, Nine Million Bicycles and If You Were A Sailboat, with songs from the new release. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Sueperfan Eleanor Higgins with her cardboard cutout of Sue Perkins
Sue Perkins superfan of the week: In PurSUEt, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Tuesday, 8pm
IN Eleanor Higgins’s LGBT confessional comedy drama, ‘Woman’ is seated in a therapist’s office, sent there to deal with her drink problem. But she does not have a problem and nor does she need therapy. She needs Sue Perkins. They are meant for each other. If only Sue could see that too, but how can she when she is too busy being a celebrity?
‘Woman’ sets out in pursuit of her love, following Sue’s every move online, breaking in backstage at the BBC. But can she keep it all together while battling her out-of control boozing? Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Chris Singleton: Giving tips on How To Be A Better Human at Theatre@41
Conversation of the week: Chris Singleton in How To Be A Better Human, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm
THIS spoken-word comedy about grief and self-acceptance tells Chris Singleton’s story of losing two of the biggest relationships in his life – father and wife – in the space of a few months.
Directed by Tom Wright, Singleton uses PowerPoint comedy, autobiographical storytelling and poetry to open conversations on mental health. Finding lightness and humour in death, loss and divorce, he explores how we can lose everything but find strength to rebuild. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Can you namet them all? Strictly Come Dancing: The Professionals at York Barbican
Dance show of the week: Strictly Come Dancing: The Professionals, York Barbican, Friday (sold out) and May 31, 7.30pm
TEN Strictly professionals – count’em – partner up for a tour directed by the BBC show’s creative director, Jason Gilkison, promising “world-class dance, stunning choreography and sparkling sets and costumes”.
In the theatrical ensemble will be: Dianne Buswell; Vito Coppola; Carlos Gu; Karen Hauer; Neil Jones; Nikita Kuzmin; Gorka Marquez; Luba Mushtuk; Jowita Przystal and Nancy Xu. Tickets for the second performance are still available at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Pete Oxley and Nick Meier of the Oxley-Meier Guitar Project
Guitars galore: Oxley-Meier Guitar Project, National Centre for Early Music, York, May 18, 7.30pm
THE Oxley-Meier Guitar Project head for York with a new album ready for release. In the line-up are Pete Oxley and Nick Meier, guitars, Raph Mizraki, bass and percussion, and Paul Cavaciuti, drums, who specialise in melodically and texturally driven contemporary jazz.
Oxley-Meier bring ten differing guitars to each concert, including fretless nylon, acoustic and electric 12-strings, sitar-guitar and 11-string fretless. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
American countertenor Reginald Mobley: Coronation concert with Monteverdi Choir tomorrow and Festival of Ideas appearance in York next month
AMERICAN countertenor Reginald Mobley will sing with the Monteverdi Choir at King Charles III’s Coronation Ceremony tomorrow (6/5/2023) in London, ahead of his June 13 performance in York.
In his last interview on Wednesday before resting his voice for his 9am Royal engagement, opening the pre-ceremony concert at Westminster Abbey, the Florida-born baroque, classical and modern singer spoke on the phone to CharlesHutchPress.
“I’m just one of the gang, being part of the celebration, singing with the Monteverdi Choir,” he said before crossing the Atlantic from California. “No, I can’t say what we’re singing! I’m on my best behaviour!
“It’s going to be an incredible event, an incredible occasion. I’ve been fortunate, through Sir John Eliot Gardiner [the choir’s founder], to have met King Charles before, and I’ve welcomed his involvement in music, organic farming and highlighting the climate crisis. I’m happy to be involved this weekend.
“But for the past ten-eleven years I’ve lived in Boston, the cradle of the American Revolution!”
Reginald, or Reggie as he likes to be called, will be heading north to York on June 13 to perform with French jazz pianist Baptiste Trotignon at the National Centre for Early Music as part of the 2023 York Festival of Ideas.
The focus will be on this month’s debut solo album, Because, a selection of American spiritual songs performed by Mobley with Trotignon, set for release on Alpha Classics on May 26.
“Spirituals are true hymns to resilience, whose beauty and strength of both lyrics and music symbolise hope and faith in humanity,” said Reginald. “This project’s aim is to do justice to this musical heritage and to honour its past performers.”
Reginald Mobley and Baptiste Trotignon: Spirituals album collaboration and tour
Previously, Reginald had recorded and performed with the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestra for ten years, along with the Orchestra of St Luke’s, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, Early Music Vancouver, Portland Baroque Orchestra and Early Music Seattle.
He has performed too with Baroque ensemble Apollo’s Fire and is a regular guest with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Washington Bach Consort and Seraphic Fire. Latterly he recorded American Originals, a collection of spirituals, with Agave Baroque, earning a Grammy nomination in 2022.
For his new recording venture, Didier Martin, head of Alpha Classics, suggested Reginald should partner with a solo pianist “as he knew I liked wild ideas”. “During the pandemic we talked about various ideas and even tried things out together online and got this idea to do something new,” Reginald said.
Reginald collected scores of slave songs and Negro spirituals from the American colonies, born from the pain and tribulations of African people deprived of fundamental rights. Inspired by Old Testament stories of the Israelites’ flight from Egypt, the songs express sorrow, grief, but joy and desire for freedom too.
A hymn to resilience and a symbol of hope and faith in humanity, the spirituals have influenced popular music, from ragtime, barbershop, jazz and gospel to blues, rock, techno and electronic music.
To grant the genre its true place in music history and to honour its original interpreters, Mobley and Trotignon have collaborated on a newly curated programme of songs written by black composers such as HT Burleigh, Florence Price and J Rosamond Johnson, alongside their own improvisational arrangements on original texts.
“I said to Baptiste, ‘don’t try them out the way they are but reinterpret them with your jazz piano and treat them as jazz standards, as all this music comes from slave songs’. Baptiste, being a French pianist, had no connection to these songs the way I did, but we realised it would work really well and Didier loved it,” said Reginald.
“So, in October 2021 I showed up in Paris, and between performances on an opera tour, we recorded the album there and the project has really taken on a life of its own. It’s an interesting exploration of music that often doesn’t get this exposure at home or abroad.”
The cover artwork for Reginald Mobley’s album Because, out on May 26 on Alpha Classics
As well as releasing such a ground-shaking album, Reginald is heavily involved in social and political activism in Boston, particularly in responding to the “massive inequality regarding race, gender, and sexuality within the classical music industry”.
“Slowly I’m starting to push that in Britain, where there’s a lot going on, which is really inspiring and I’m a bit jealous of that, to be honest,” he said.
“We spend so much time trying to find the magic bullet to kill this spectre of racism, but we have to find a better way to do that. Facing the problem of racism in America, we have a country that has tried to move on with half measures, but the problem has still not been solved, and there has been such anger on both sides.”
As a queer black man, Reginald has found himself “living in both worlds and seeing rejection from both worlds as gay culture has absorbed black music and black speech and yet there was this weird reluctance to get involved in the debate about racism,” he said.
“There are so many people who will refuse to acknowledge the racism problem but will listen to Marvin Gaye’s music, or watch the Black Panther movies, or eat fried chicken. But I honestly believe music has a role to play in solving the issue, though I don’t think of musicians as being essential in the world in the way that doctors and nurses are.
“But we have a role to play through the arts in general. We are the guardian of empathy and compassion. If we can get people to stop and listen, to open their hearts through music, then maybe change can happen.”
Reflecting on bringing the songs of Burleigh, Price and Johnson into the spotlight, Reginald said: “It’s sad that we don’t give more attention to the roots of these songs, but what’s important now is to have the conversation about why these things should never happen again, so that we solve the ignorance surrounding racism.”
As a singer of Early music, Reginald said “we need to realise that there is so much that connects us”, citing the German music that emerged from the horror of the Thirty Years’ War, when only a year after the war started in 1618, the first slave ships started landing and “our path began”.
“Growing up as a very poor boy in the Deep South, this is in no way the path I would have expected to be walking in my life,” says countertenor Reginald Mobley
“Handel was writing his music, processing grief and reacting to tragedy, at the same time as we were singing in the fields,” he noted. “How sad for us to have our issues for so long and that it’s taking so long for change to come.”
Raised by his grandparents in Gainesville, Florida, in the American Deep South, Reginald first sang in church: the routine “origin story”, he said. “My background is in gospel music. My grandparents wouldn’t allow classical music in the house as there was this belief that ‘it’s not for non-whites’, and yet we’ve always had music in our lives.
“But growing up as a very poor boy in the Deep South, this is in no way the path I would have expected to be walking in my life, and no matter what, I’m still going to be this African-American guy representing those who bled and died so that I can make music freely.”
Reginald concluded: “I am not myself if I don’t have hope that things are changing. I always believe in moving forward and that if we keep on the path, things may change.
“I may not see the consequences but the idea that someone will do so later is what fills me with hope. That’s what we should always be thinking about: that it’s not about us now but that those who come after us will live better life than we do. That’s when the barriers of sexual orientation, race and gender can be eroded.”
York Festival of Ideas presents Reginald Mobley & Baptiste Trotignon, National Centre for Early Music, June 13, 7.30pm. Dr Matthew Williams, from the University of York music department, will give an illustrated talk from 6.30pm to 7pm and lead a short Q&A with the musicians after the concert. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
REGINALD Mobley and Baptiste Trotignon will appear at the BBC Proms at Sage Gateshead on July 23, performing American spiritual songs such as Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen, My Lord What A Morning, Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child, Steal Away, Great Campmeetin, By And By, Save Me Lord, and There Is A Balm In Gilead. The 2pm programme will include three Florence Price works: Because, Resignation and Sunset. Box office: sagegateshead.com.
Did you know?
REGINALD Mobley’s first professional work was in musical theatre, and while working in Japan as a singer/actor for Tokyo Disney, he performed cabaret shows of gospel, jazz and torch songs in jazz clubs around Tokyo.
Did you know too?
IN Europe, Reginald has performed with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchester Wiener Akademie, Balthasar Neumann Chor & Ensemble, Bach Society in Stuttgart and Holland Baroque Orchestra.
Pete Oxley and Nick Meier of the Oxley-Meier Guitar Project
THE Oxley-Meier Guitar Project play the National Centre for Early Music, York, on May 18 in the wake of releasing new album Mercurial Indigo on the MGP label today.
In the line-up are Pete Oxley and Nick Meier, guitars, Raph Mizraki, bass and percussion, and Paul Cavaciuti, drums, who specialise in melodically and texturally driven contemporary jazz.
Oxley-Meier bring ten differing guitars to each concert, including fretless nylon, acoustic and electric 12-strings, sitar-guitar and 11-string fretless.
“These instruments – with these players – allow for a huge variety of textures and soundscapes, from Middle Eastern-influenced music to Brazilian-inspired sambas,” says Pete.
The Oxley-Meier Guitar Project in concert
The Oxley-Meier Guitar Project has – either in duo or quartet formats – performed hundreds of concerts in myriad venues, such as Ronnie Scott’s and the Wigmore Hall, in London; Sage Gateshead; Musicport World Music Festival, in Whitby, and the London Jazz Festival. They have toured widely across Europe too, presenting music from their five albums.
Outside of this project, Nick Meier has toured the world in late guitarist Jeff Beck’s band and has recorded with such A-listers as Vinnie Colaiuta (Sting, Frank Zappa) and Jimmy Haslip (The Yellowjackets).
Pete Oxley has recorded 15 albums of original music and, as a composer, was among only a handful of British musicians to have been included in the European Real Book [Sher Publishing]. For the past 20 years, he has hosted and been the house guitarist in the Oxford jazz club The Spin.
Tickets for this 7.30pm concert are on sale at ncem.co.uk or on 01904 658338.
Jacob Fowler’s Jason ‘JD’ Dean with Jenna Innes’ Veronica Sawyer in Heathers The Musical, on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, from Tuesday. Picture: Pamela Raith
IN August 2021, Leeds Grand Theatre became the first theatre in the world to host a touring production of Heathers The Musical.
Next week, Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s American high-school black comedy reports back for a new term in Yorkshire, this time at the Grand Opera House, York.
Welcome to Westerberg High, school year 1989, where Veronica Sawyer is just another nobody dreaming of a better day. When she joins the beautiful, mallet-wielding, impossibly cruel Heathers, her dreams of popularity may finally come true.
Enter mysterious teen rebel Jason ‘JD’ Dean to teach her that it might kill to be a nobody, but it is murder being a somebody.
Playing JD, the Christian Slater role in Michael Lehmann’s savagely satirical cult teen movie, will be Jacob Fowler, whose path to stardom brings girl group Little Mix into his story.
“I’d gone to Trinity Laban Conservatoire to study musical theatre for three years, but I ended up putting my studies on hold, just before Covid, to do the Little Mix The Search talent show – and I actually won the competition!” he says.
More precisely, singer and pianist Jacob was part of the group Since September, put together to compete in the contest.
“The prize was to support Little Mix on their Confetti Tour of UK arenas. I’ve never known an experience like it when you just don’t get to do that as an average person growing up in Nottingham!
“Then in between doing the TV show and the Little Mix tour, I got my contract as first cover JD in the ensemble for Heathers.”
Jacob had first seen Heathers in his drama student days on a gala night at the Theatre Royal Haymarket and did so again in his home city in September 2021. Two months later, he was in the cast. “After only five shows, the actor playing JD had to go off and ended up being off for two weeks. He came back for a few days but then left the show,” Jacob recalls.
“I did 125 shows in that first contract, 26 as The Geek, and 99 as JD, which meant the first night of the new tour at Windsor Theatre Royal was my 100th show as JD…on Valentine’s Day! The 200th show will be while we’re in York.”
Produced by impresario Bill Kenwright and Paul Taylor-Mills and directed by Andy Fickman, the tour carries the warning: “This production contains mature themes including: references to suicide and eating disorders; moments of violence; murder; sexual violence; gunshots and flashing lights.”
“It’s that age-old thing of now being more relevant than it’s ever been, dealing with homophobia and fat phobia too. Apart from racism, it touches on all these horrible things we have in society.
“You hope that with homophobia, for example, maybe some progress has been made but it’s still not enough.”
Jacob considers high-school outsider JD, symbolically always dressed in black, to have the best story arc in Heathers. “As a storyline, as a character, he has this depth, starting as a cheeky chappie, not falling for the idiots,” he says. “But then he falls in love and becomes manipulative, though he always thinks he’s doing the right thing.
“It’s a sombre thing to say, but I don’t think there’ll ever be a role like this for me again,” says Jacob Fowler. Picture: Pamela Raith
“Even at the end, he’s saying ‘let’s build a better world’ with Veronica. When he sings, ‘I’m damaged, badly damaged, once I disappear, clean up the mess down here’, I take it that this is his slight redemption. It’s more of a plea, saying, he knows what he’s done, but please change.”
Jacob talks of himself as being part of “this little group of JDs, because only 15 people have played him or understudied the role”. “From the outset, I take a lot from Jamie Muscato, who I saw on that gala night performance. He was the original JD in London, and there’s that thing that you can’t beat the first person you saw in a role,” he says.
“In fact, I’ve now met or messaged pretty much everyone who’s played JD. I’ve even messaged the original Broadway JD, Ryan McCartan, and his understudy, Dan Domenech.
“I loved the way Jamie played and sang it in London; That was my grounding, my blueprint, but of course there’s a part of any actor that can’t help but put themselves in any performance. For mine, I like to go down the line of the more psychotic JD, rather than a naturalistic one.
“Where others play him as always behaving like he’s 17, I play him with jolts and head ticks to make him look psychotic. I just started doing that, and now people come up after a show and say, ‘go on, do your head tick’!”
Jacob will be on tour in Heathers until the last week of October. “I often say to people, and it’s a sombre thing to say, but I don’t think there’ll ever be a role like this for me again – and I’m saying that when I’m only 23,” he says.
“It just happens to be that my dream role is someone so young, someone who gave me my break in musical theatre and is such an incredible role to play. Though hopefully I’ll have the chance to play the Phantom [in The Phantom Of The Opera] one day.”
Where was Jacob when he was 17? “I was at Trinity Catholic Scool in Nottingham, studying Music, Technolgy and Drama A-levels – all very ‘musical’ things!” he says.
On the Heathers scale, was he a “nobody” or a “somebody”? “I was headboy! The first head boy the school had ever had. We got a new head teacherwho brought in having a head boy or head girl for the first time,” says Jacob.
“Names were put forward and then the final three had an interview. I remember him ringing me up to tell me when I was in the bath! I think there’s a plaque at the school saying, ‘Jacob Fowler, Head Boy 2017-2018’.
“The year before, when there was no official title, the equivalent role went to Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the international cellist, and I thought it was very, very cool to follow him!”
Unlike JD, Jacob was never a rebel. “I very much stuck to the rules, though I would never bow down. I wouldn’t take anything from anyone,” he says. “I’ve never liked authority, which sounds like I’m stubborn and might not fit in with being head boy – but if someone can’t justify something, then I’d challenge it, but I’d always play by the school rules at 16-17.
“It was at such a good school, a normal state school, with such a good music department, and I was lucky to go there. I’m a real advocate for music and theatre in schools. They’re so important.”
Heathers The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, May 9 to 13, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york
Copyright of The Press, York
May Tether in her Liverpool Empire dressing room on the night she played Veronica Sawyer for the first time on the Heathers The Musical tourin 2021
Did you know?
MAY Tether, the York Stage favourite of Goole roots, has performed opposite Jacob Fowler in Heathers The Musical in London.
“May was at Trinity Laban Conservatoire in the year above me, so I knew her already,” says Jacob. “She moved up from ‘cover Veronica’ on the first tour to playing Veronica at The Other Palace with me as JD.”
SARABETH Tucek is emerging from a “decade-long hibernation” with a double album, tour and new moniker, SBT.
The New Jersey actress-turned-singer-songwriter will follow up the May 19 release of Joan Of All on her own Ocean Omen label with an 18-date itinerary that takes in Yorkshire gigs at Selby Town Hall on May 20 and The Greystones, Sheffield, on May 25.
Here, CharlesHutchPress discusses hibernation, the song-writing craft, a change of name, her album title, Bob Dylan, Brian Jonestown Massacre and past Yorkshire encounters with Sarabeth.
Had you ever envisaged such a long hiatus between albums since 2011’s Get Well Soon?
“No, I had not. Honestly, I had not envisaged a lot of things that have happened in my life but here I am. I think if I needed to have my life take the turns it did in order to arrive at this new record then so be it. It’s my favourite creation.”
Did you ever doubt you would return to the recording studio?
“No, I knew I would return. I just wasn’t sure when that would be. I think I make records because I need to hear myself say something to myself. Aloud. I can look for another artist to say it to me but less and less I hear what I need to hear and so that has been a motivating factor.”
Did you consider it to be a “decade in hibernation”?
“In some ways. I think parts of my mind went into hibernation. I think I needed to understand some things that happened in my life. But I dunno. I just think of a bear or an animal in a cave when I hear the word hibernation.
“I am maybe more like a squirrel that buried some nuts in the ground with the knowledge I would come back to them someday for sustenance.”
How have you changed as a songwriter over the past 12 years?
“I used to think I only had a musical language for sad thoughts and feelings but now I feel I have access to the other parts of myself as well. Also, I feel differently than I used to. In the world as a person. So that has changed my writing.”
How many years of song-writing span the double album? Did you ever suffer writer’s block?
“I wrote two of the songs several years ago and the rest in a couple of weeks. No, I don’t have writer’s block. I can write when I need to, but my issue is allowing myself the time to go sit in a room with my guitar and make something of the words.
“I don’t understand this problem but sometimes I think it’s some form of self-punishment. Like I am depriving myself of something that has brought me moments of real joy. I deny myself.”
Explain the choice of album title, Joan Of All…
“Well, I wanted to call it The Middle Ages. That’s the age I am in, and I started thinking about armour and how I have started to feel like in some ways I am losing my armour but in other ways gaining it.
“Around the time I was deciding on a title, Roe v Wade began to come under attack so… middle ages, then women being brave and persecuted… Joan of Arc came to mind and then my mom’s name is Joan! She was a single mom and I am forever in awe of her strength.”
How do you distinguish Sarabeth from SBT?
“People have always called me SBT. Also, no-one can ever pronounce my last name. Every initial meeting with someone I have to hear them struggle with my last name and then I have to correct their pronunciation and then they apologise and I say, ‘no, its OK, no-one can pronounce it’, and it’s just a weird way to meet people.
“Also, I feel like everything about this record is new for me and SBT feels right.”
“I can write when I need to, but my issue is allowing myself the time to go sit in a room with my guitar and make something of the words,” says Sarabeth. Picture: Paula Bullwinkel
What do you recall of working with Smog’s Bill Callahan? How did that partnership come about?
“Colin Gagon, who played with Will Oldham, asked me if I wanted to come to his studio to record some of my songs. I had met him at a party in Echo Park where the guitar was being passed around and I sang a couple songs.
“We made some demos and then later Colin was going to record his own record and Bill Callahan was producing it. Colin asked me to come up to San Francisco and sing on his record and contribute a song. I didn’t have a lot of interaction with Bill. He is very quiet and so am I.
“About a year later, Bill reached out and asked if I would come to Chicago, where he lived, to sing on his new record. Of course, I jumped at the chance. I have always been a big Smog fan.
“I remember listening to the demos of the songs on Supper at the studio, so I could figure out my parts, and it was difficult because the songs made me feel so much personally that it was hard to concentrate. I think I cried.
“The lyrics are very moving. That record is brilliantly written and I will always be honoured to have been a part of it. Bill was very kind. We had some good long talks. It was great.”
DiG! is one of the great rockumentaries. What do you recall of making an appearance in the film and indeed of working with Anton Newcombe’s Brian Jonestown Massacre?
“Well, I remember the day of his show at the knitting factory, which is in the documentary. The show when Anton kicked that poor guy in the head. He was asking me all day to come and sing because he wasn’t feeling well and wanted some help with singing duties.
“He wanted me to play some songs to lessen his time onstage. I didn’t want to and kept saying no because I could tell he was in a mood. I knew him well enough to predict the times when he might lose his temper.
“Also, I had just started writing songs and didn’t feel ready to perform to a full house. I agreed though and then of course he lost his temper with this guy in the audience. “Anton had introduced me as his sister and the guy after I played said something silly like ‘F*** you, your sister rocks’. He heard it wrong and thought the guy was suggesting he should have sex with me, his sister. I am not related to him by the way.
“This just sounds so dumb to retell and it is. Anyway, a fight ensued and Anton ended up going to jail. Good times!
“My time living/working with the BJM is part tragedy, part comedy. I am actually glad I got to be a part of a world, a rock’n’roll world, that is probably not going to happen again. That whole period of time in Echo Park in the mid-late ’90s. A lot of great musicians and cheap rent.”
Did you meet Bob Dylan when you supported him?
“Yes, Bob called me over backstage and we had a nice chat. I was told he didn’t talk to his opening acts and so I wasn’t expecting the encounter. I was tremendously nervous.
“I am not religious but for me he is a kind of demi-god. I don’t get excited by celebrity but I was overwhelmed with being in front of someone who is actually a genius and whose music has helped me to understand what it means to be alive.”
Have you played in Selby/York/North Yorkshire previously?
“Yes, we played the Band Room on the Yorkshire moors. In Farndale, I believe [Correct, Sarabeth! Low Mill, Farndale, May 2011]. I will never forget the absolute and overwhelming beauty of that area.
“We played York as well, but I can’t recall the venue. [Correct again, Sarabeth! Fibbers in March 2008, it turns out]. I have never played Selby! I am excited to visit and play!”
What form will your concert take: solo or with a band?
“I am bringing a band to try and bring as much as I can from the record to a live stage. We are going to go all out on this tour!”
SBT (Sarabeth Tucek) plays Selby Town Hall, May 20, 8pm, supported by Kiran Leonard and Todmorden guitarist and songsmith dbh. Box office: 01757 708449 or selbytownhall.co.uk. Also: The Greystones, Sheffield, May 25, 8pm; mygreystones.co.uk/may.
The cover artwork for SBT’s album Joan Of All
Sarabeth Tucek back story
Born in Miami, Florida, daughter of a psychiatrist father and psychologist mother. Parents split when she was a child; raised by mother in Manhattan, New York. Graduated from Westfield High School.
Occupation: Actress first, now singer-songwriter.
Officially broke onto music scene in 2003, performing duets with Bill Callahan on Smog album Supper.
Appeared in Ondi Timoner’s 2004 prize-winning Brian Jonestown Massacre versus The Dandy Warhols documentary DiG!. Contributed to Brian Jonestown Massacre’s 2005 EP We Are The Radio.
Debut single Something For You released in 2006, becoming Steve Lamacq’s Single of the Week on BBC 6 Music.
Self-titled debut album arrived in 2007, produced by Luther Russell and Ethan Johns. Rave reviews led to support slot with idol Bob Dylan.
After troubled Los Angles years of alcohol, car crashes and jail for drink-driving when struggling to handle the disorientating success of her debut album, she found her redemptive footing in New York.
Resulting 2011 sophomore album, Get Well Soon, meditated on “the ferocity of grief “after the loss of her father, who had died more than a decade earlier from a sudden heart attack on a boat on a lake. Title track featured on first season of HBO’s Girls.
After retreating from the record business to concentrate on other creative endeavours, she returns on May 19 with double album Joan Of All, under her sobriquet of SBT, a longtime tag given to her by the many musicians she has worked with throughout her career.
Lead single The Gift has been receiving airplay on Marc Riley’s BBC 6 Music show. She will record a live session for Riley while on tour.
Should you be wondering: Tucek is pronounced two-check.
Joan Of All tracklisting:
Joan Says/Amber Shade; The Living Room; Cathy Says; The Gift; The Box; Work; Make Up Your Mind; 13th St #1; Swings; Happiness; Something/Anything; Sheep; The Tunnel; Unmade/The Dog; Creature Of The Night.
Chris Jones, Selby Town Council arts officer, on bringing Sarabeth Tucek to Selby
“IT’S Sarabeth’s first UK tour in over a decade, supporting her first album since 2011 – a big, sprawling, electric Americana affair called Joan Of All. She’ll be performing here with a full electric band, including some who have played with Jakob (son of Bob) Dylan’s live outfits. This is definitely one of the ‘cooler’ gigs we’ve put on over the last year or so!
“Sarabeth is as talented as she is enigmatic. Her new work mixes the classic sound of East Coast Americana singer-songwriters with bigger hooks, bigger guitars and some considerable musical exploration.”
YORK Late Music pays tribute on Saturday to two British composers: a major name and an unjustly forgotten figure who is surely due for a revival.
The evening concert, A New Matrix, has been planned as a tribute to Sir Harrison Birtwistle, who died in April 2021. Birtwistle was a colossus in contemporary music, especially opera, whose influence was worldwide.
Based around the clarinet, the 7.30pm programme also acknowledges the work of York musician Alan Hacker, who was a long-term friend and musical associate of Birtwistle, and who taught many of those involved in this weekend’s performance.
Alongside Birtwistle’s work, the programme includes pieces by Messaien (whom Birtwistle acknowledged as an influence) and Peter Maxwell Davies, as well as a series of short pieces composed following Birtwistle’s death.
Guitarist Federico Pendenza
The lunchtime concert (1pm) celebrates the work of Reginald Smith Brindle, who died in 2003. A Lancastrian, like Birtwistle, Smith Brindle’s eclectic output included two symphonies, although he is now best known for his solo guitar work.
Guitarist Federico Pendenza, from the University of York, will be playing four works by Smith Brindle, pieces by Poulenc and a Chris Gander world premiere.
Both concerts are at Late Music’s usual venue, the Unitarian Chapel in St Saviourgate, York. The evening event will follow a 6.45pm talk by composer David Lancaster, with a complimentary glass of wine or juice.
Lunchtime concert tickets cost £5; evening, £12, students £5, at latemusic.org or on the door
