News

Last revised: April 13th 2010

Sarah Williamson
Sarah gave an exciting performance last month of an arrangement of Monti’s “Csardas” for clarinet and orchestra with the Philharmonia in a packed Royal Albert Hall last month as part of a Classic FM Live concert. She also went to Spain with the Carducci Quartet to perform in the Ourense Festival. There is a wonderful 2 page interview with her in the current Clarinet and Saxophone magazine and we are looking forward to the release of her CD (Copland and Finzi concertos with Orchestra of the Swan) next month. On 24 April she will perform the Copland with the Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra in St Peter’s Church, Notting Hill.

James Barralet
James’s debut CD for Landor is being well reviewed.
“This young cellist- who has also made his mark playing Indian music – offers a muscular rich sound which dazzles in the Kodaly sonata and the gymnastics of Edwin Roxburgh’s Partita for solo cello, and then switches on the lyricism for an intense account of Britten’s third cello suite, including both versions of the first movement. A brilliant debut disc.” ****
Classical Music Magazine March 2010

“In 2007 British cellist won the Landor Records Competition; this debut disk is the result. Kodaly’s Sonata opens it in arresting fashion. Barralet, who studied with Thomas Demenga at the Musikhochschule Basel, plays with energy and poise, judging the pace expertly. The expansive chords seem to use every available inch of bow and the many incredible effects that Kodaly draws from his instrument are accomplished with enviable technique. Barralet, a fresh and charismatic communicator, keen Hungarian folk dancer and one half of a cello and tabla duo, might be just the ideal performer for this music. Edwin Roxburgh’s brief 1970 Partita makes its own recorded debut here. Unfortunately its composition date, a year before Britten’s Third Suite, makes comparison inevitable. The four concise movements make effective use of a wide range of techniques that Barralet executes faultlessly, but there is none of the profundity and soulful eloquence of the Britten, whose mood changes in the Allegro (Marcia) and ‘Dialogo’ are as rapid as flashes of film.”
The Strad April 2010

James will be performing in Balliol College, Oxford on 16 May at 9.00pm with a programme of Boccherini, Mendelssohn, Faure and Rachmaninoff

Beatson-Gould-Barralet Trio James Barralet has been joined by two of the finest musicians of their generation, pianist Alasdair Beatson and violinist Thomas Gould, to form the Beatson-Gould-Barralet Piano Trio. All are well established in their own rights as soloists and have come together to share their passion for music. Alasdair Beatson has recently released his debut CD with SOMM Records. He has given several solo performances at the Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room to outstanding critical praise. Very much in demand as a chamber musician as well, he has toured with International Musicians Seminar, the Doric String Quartet, and as soloist with the Scottish Ensemble.
Thomas Gould has combines a busy solo career with positions of leader of Aurora Orchestra, co-leader of Britten Sinfonia and guest leader of McGill Chamber Orchestra in Montreal. He is also an accomplished jazz violinist and represented by YCAT.

Libor Novacek
Libor’s fourth CD for Landor is also being well reviewed:
The young Czech pianist Libor Novacek's recording of the second, Italian book of Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage brought him to everyone's attention when it appeared four years ago, and the release of his version of its earlier, more introverted Swiss companion has long felt overdue. It's been worth the wait, however. In many respects Novacek is an ideal Liszt interpreter, technically exacting yet aware that the composer's aim was not so much to push the player to his limits as to expand the piano's expressive capabilities and the descriptive and narrative possibilities of music. You're aware of a fine poetic sensibility at work here, yielding breathtaking results in the shorter pieces such as Au Lac de Wallenstadt and Pastorale. Yet Novacek also has the ability to think big when he needs to, so the larger, more discursive pieces such as Vallée d'Obermann never seem shapeless or out of control. The filler is the Consolations, in a performance of exquisite refinement, though darker and less sentimental than most.
Tim Ashley guardian.co.uk, 11 March 2010

Liszt is red meat for the big beasts of the piano. What makes this recital so arresting is the low-key approach that Libor Novacek takes to the Swiss episodes of Liszt's travel diaries, as well the later, lesser known Consolations. The meditative, priestly aspect of Liszt is often eclipsed by virtuosic display. Not here, though. Softly, reflectively, Novacek portrays a deeper, introspective Liszt, seldom rising above double-forte.
Norman Lebrecht 2010

On 16 May Libor makes his debut with the LPO in Eastbourne playing Liszt 1.

Marina Nadiradze
Marina’s next UK concert will be at the Chipping Norton Theatre on 21st May when her performance will include the Chopin B Minor Sonata. She has been invited to the Frome Festival this year as musician in residence where her concerts will include both Chopin Concertos on 15 and 16 July and a solo recital in Longleat House on 14 July. She will also appear in the Harrogate International Festival on 19 July in a Yamaha presentation concert.

Madeleine Mitchell
Madeleine returned to the USA recently for a tour of recitals and master classes including California, Florida and Oregon. She recently stepped in at the last minute for a concert in the Hall for Cornwall International Series with her London Chamber Ensemble and a programme of Mozart and Mahler Piano Quartets and Schubert Trout Quintet.

Madeleine Mitchell has a new collaboration with pianist Noriko Ogawa which has won an award from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. They are performing in festivals this summer including Aldborough 18 June and Buxton 11 July - Debussy and Franck violin sonatas with short pieces by Takemitsu and Bridge. In May Madeleine records works by Wendy Hiscocks, to be featured in the Australian Chamber Music Festival.

Carducci Quartet
They are about to embark on another tour of the USA, following which they will appear at Kings Place on 15 May with Matthew Barley. This will be a totally unique concert- going experience! In the first half they play movements of Schubert, Haydn and Sachiado, and in between Matthew will improvise responses on his electric cello, creating other worldly contrasts and surprises. During these improvisations, John Metcalfe will be noting compositional ideas on a computer that Matthew will see via a monitor, which will also be visible to the audience. This means that there will be a ‘creative transmission' in real time from composer to performer to audience that will be entirely transparent - the audience will be able to see and hear exactly how that process works, thanks to the advanced technology being used. Subtle and improvised lighting from the Kings Place lighting crew will enhance the effect of a magical musical journey. In the second half, Matthew and the quartet join forces for a collection of premières of imaginative and sumptuous re-workings of Metcalfe by young composer Misha Mullov-Abbado.

Galliard Ensemble
The Galliards gave two rousing and lively children’s concerts last month in Oxford, where the programmes were The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch and Making a Musical Cake. A fun time was had by all concerned! They are at Leighton Buzzard on 17 April and next month includes a mini residency at the RWCMD and a concert in Naunton on 14 May.

Katona Twins
Next month the twins will take part in the Channel Classics 20th Anniversary concert in Eindhoven. They have recently returned from a very successful mini tour of Scotland and another trip to San Francisco as part of their residency there.

Leslie Howard
Leslie Howards’s Wigmore Hall concert last year has been very well reviewed:
The prize for the performance of the year should surely be awarded to Leslie Howard for his playing of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata Opus 106 at the Wigmore Hall on November 8. Intellectually, physically, virtuosically and emotionally this was a towering performance...Opus No 6 is the Mount Everest of music; very few pianists can achieve the perfection that Howard exposed for us.. Leslie Howard is an amazing performer.
John Amis, Musical Opinion 2010

Next month Leslie Howard will be touring Italy and them off to Bulawayo for the festival.

Jason Thornton
On 14 April Jason Thornton appears on Radio 3’s In Tune programme to talk about his forthcoming concert in Bath Abbey with the Bath Phil the following day celebrating the life and music of Venanzio Rauzzini, one of Bath’s most famous residents. Male soprano Radu Marian will make his UK debut with Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate, which was written for Rauzzini and extracts from Mozart ’s opera Lucio Silla, in which Rauzzini created the role of Cecilio in Milan in 1772. The programme also includes a real rarity, Rauzzini’s own composition The Rose.
How did Rauzzini, such a star of Italian opera, whose musical career began in Rome in the 1760s, and progressed in Milan, Vienna, Munich, London and Dublin among other cities, come to Bath in the 1790s? Celebrated as one of the greatest castrati or counter tenors of his day, Rauzzini came to the city as impresario on his retirement from the stage, and took over Bath’s prestigious subscription concerts in the Lower Assembly Rooms in 1781. He used his talents for composition, playing piano and harpsichord teaching and conducting and became the most sought after singing teacher in Britain.

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