Ronald Samm News
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2024-04-24
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2023-11-09 08:17:00
Remembering Keel Watson
Puccini, arr: Burke: Toscatastrophe! - Gwenneth-Ann Rand, Keel Watson - Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 2018With the sad news of the passing of bass-baritone Keel Watson, I thought I would look over some of the remarkable and diverse roles that we have seen him in over the years, in everything from Gilbert & Sullivan to Wagner, he had a remarkable, Derek Hammond Stroud-like ability to inhabit a role whether it be comic or serious.One of my favourites moments was his wonderfully louche Scarpia in Tête à Tête's Toscatastrophe! in 2018, a comic reworking of Puccini's Tosca with Gwenneth-Ann Rand and Ronald Samm [see my review] and the last role we saw him in was also in the comic vein, a wonderfully pointed (and political) Private Willis in Gilbert & Sullivan's Iolanthe at English National Opera last month [see my review], whilst in 2018 he managed to dominate proceedings as the Usher in Gilbert & Sullivan's Trial […]
2023-10-10 06:41:00
John Findon takes the title role in ENO's magnificent revival of David Alden's production of Britten's Peter Grimes
[…] annoying types crowding the back of the courtroom to witness the local coroner and drunkard, Swallow (sung cunningly by Clive Bayley) conducting an inquest into the death of William Spode, Grimes’ first apprentice, who died in his fishing boat. Although acquitted of any wrongdoing, the ‘locals’ thought otherwise and were out for his blood. The cast is further strengthened by Adam Sullivan as Bob Boles (fisherman and Methodist), David Soar (Hobson, the carrier) and Ronald Samm (Revd Horace Adams) while Alex Otterburn (Ned Keene) plays the role of apothecary with a touch of deviousness while getting the better of Mrs Sedley in their exchange of banned substances. Apart from Ellen Orford the only other friend that Grimes could call on is retired old seadog, Captain Balstrode, boldly and authoritatively sung by Simon Bailey, who, despairingly, tells Grimes to go. Therefore, guilt-ridden and driven to near insanity following the death of […]
2022-07-25 09:02:00
Friends & Lovers: London Song Festival explores the close relationship between poet & composer
Paul Laurence Dunbar & Samuel Coleridge-TaylorThe 2022 season of Nigel Foster's London Song Festival (LSF) will be presenting eight concerts between 28 October and 9 December 2022 on the theme of Friends and Lovers. Each concert explores the a close relationship (whether romantic or purely friendship) between a poet and a composer, their stories told with sung and spoken words, actors as well as singers. I have to confess a particular interest in the series as my setting of poetry by Paul Laurence Dunbar will be premiered at the concert on 2 December 2022, when tenor Ronald Samm and soprano Gweneth Ann Rand perform Coleridge-Taylor's settings of Dunbar, alongside music by Florence Price, and William Grant Still.The season opens on 28 October with Lotte Betts-Dean, Julien Van Mellaerts, Harriet Slater and John D Collins, in an exploration of the relationship between Ralph Vaughan Williams and his poet wife Ursula, including new songs by Roderick […]
2022-01-10 08:27:05
Fanny Mendelssohn's music room at her home with her husband in Berlin (Julius Eduard Wilhelm Helfft) How much of Felix Mendelssohn's choral music do you know? He wrote a significant amount from unaccompanied sacred anthems right through to the great oratorios and choral symphonic music. Yet choirs only occasionally explore beyond Elijah. And what about his sister, Fanny Mendelssohn? Whilst her songs and chamber music have become more commonly performed, her choral music lags behind. A concert from the Crouch End Festival Chorus and the London Mozart Players, conductor David Temple, aims to get us exploring. At Alexandra Palace Theatre on Sunday 23 January 2022, with soloists Julia Doyle, Rebecca Afonwy-Jones, Ronald Samm and Ashley Riches they will be performing Felix Mendelssohn dramatic cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht along with his setting of Psalm 42 and his chorale cantata Vom Himmel hoch. Alongside these will be Fanny Mendelssohn's cantata Hiob (Job) and her […]
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