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2024-04-24
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2024-04-06 08:42:00
Spell Book, Witch & Stone Fruit: composer Freya Waley-Cohen on the power of ritual and spells
Freya Waley-Cohen: Spell Book - Héloïse Werner, Manchester Collective - Barbican (Photo: César Vásquez Altamirano)On 1 February 2024, Manchester Collective, Héloïse Werner (soprano), Fleur Barron (mezzo-soprano), Katie Bray (mezzo-soprano) and Céline Saout (harp) presented the world premiere of Freya Waley-Cohen's complete Spell Book at the Barbican in advance of the song cycle's release on NMC Recordings in October 2024. Setting feminist spell-poems from Rebecca Tamás' 2019 collection WITCH, the cycle mines a vein that Freya Waley-Cohen also explored in her 2020 opera WITCH. In a totally different vein, February 2024 also saw the premiere of Freya's Stone Fruit at Wigmore Hall performed by the Colin Currie Quartet.Freya Waley-Cohen (Photo: Patrick Allen)When Freya first read Rebecca Tamás' poetry, it caught her imagination and expanded her way of looking at the world. Freya loved the idea of witches and spells, the poetry was fantastical, playful and powerful. She also felt that the […]
2024-04-05 08:55:00
West Green House Opera: new artistic director Tom Elwin introduces the 2024 season
Thomas Elwin as Lensky in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at West Green House Opera in 2021(Photo: Matthew Williams-Ellis)West Green House Opera returns this Summer for its fourth season in the magical theatre on the lake. Running from 19 to 28 July 2024 the season features Verdi's Falstaff, Rossini's Il barbiere di Sivigla and Puccini's Suor Angelica. As ever, one of the non-musical attractions of the festival is the setting, with Marylyn Abbott's gardens form both a spectacular operatic backdrop and a source of pre-opera delight.The opera company also has a new artistic director, Tom Elwin. Best known as a tenor, he was Lensky in West Green's 2021 production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin [see review on OperaToday] and his roles last year included Gennaro in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia with English Touring Opera [see my review], Rodolfo in Puccini's La Boheme also with ETO and Nemorino in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore with Wild Arts [see my review].For Tom, one […]
2024-04-03 06:35:00
A wondrous snapshot of British singing: Ralph Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music and the sixteen singers chosen for the first performance
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music - exploring the sixteen singers chosen for the first performance; Isobel Baillie, Elise Suddaby, Eva Turner, Stiles-Allen, Muriel Brunskill, Astra Desmond, Margaret Balfour, Mary Jarrod, Walter Widdop, Parry Jones, Frank Titterson, Heddle Nash, Roy Henderson, Robert Easton, Harold Williams, Norman Allin, Keith Falkner; Albion RecordsReviewed 2 April 2024A remastering of the iconic 1938 recording along with a solo track from each of the sixteen soloists (plus one extra) providing a wondrous snapshot of British singing in the 1930sRalph Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music has become rightly become iconic and on this disc from Albion Records the original 1938 recording is explored from a different angle. We hear that original recording with Isobel Baillie, Elise Suddaby, Eva Turner, Stiles-Allen, Muriel Brunskill, Astra Desmond, Margaret Balfour, Mary Jarrod, Walter Widdop, Parry Jones, Frank Titterson, Heddle Nash, Roy Henderson, Robert Easton, Harold Williams, and Norman Allin conducted by […]
2024-04-02 08:32:00
Like no other: Rachmaninoff's Vespers in a remarkable new recording arranged for men's voices
Sergei Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil, Op. 37 (Vespers), arranged, Benedict Sheehan, Dmitri Lazarev, Alexander Gretchaninoff; PaTRAM Institute Male Choir, conductor Ekaterina Antonenko; CHANDOSReviewed 1 April 2024A new version of Rachmaninoff Vespers for men's voices preserves the work's luminous textures and adds a wonderful warm glow and rich textures, plus some spectacular voicesRachmaninoff wrote his All-Night Vigil (Vespers) for an all-male choir (men and boys) in 1915, though the work's history since then has largely been amongst mixed-voice choirs. But various attempts have been made to adapt the material to men-only choirs. Inspired by one of composer Alexander Gretchaninoff's arrangements of a movement for men-only, the PaTRAM Institute (Patriarch Tikhon Russian-American Music Institute) assembled a crack men-only choir, the PaTRAM Institute Male Choir, under conductor Ekaterina Antonenko to record a new version of Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil for men's voices, with soloists Igor Morozov, Evgeny Kachurovsky and Alexis V. Lukianov (co-founder of the […]
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