Pre-Concert Talk
Andrew Litton talks about the programme
Entrance: Free (access to the pre-concert talk by concert ticket
7.30pm Wycombe
Swan, High Wycombe
Orchestral and Choral Concert
Conductor:
Andrew Litton
Soloist:
Felicity Palmer CBE - mezzo soprano
Britten |
Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes |
This very special concert, which is a repeat of one given at The Barbican to launch The Richard Hickox Foundation, starts with Britten's suite Four Sea Interludes orchestrated by Britten from the descriptive music in his opera Peter Grimes: together they form a finely balanced piece. The first half of the concert concludes with Mendelssohn's symphony Reformation composed in 1830 to celebrate Luther's Augsberg Confession of 1530. After the interval the CLS is joined by the LSC in a performance of Elgar's Music Makers. Composed in 1912; this is an ode to a poem by O'Shaughnessy and contains several references to other works by Elgar.
The City of London Sinfonia is a chamber orchestra and was founded by the late Richard Hickox, who also founded the Wooburn Festival. The CLS performs over 100 concerts a year at many leading UK venues, tours abroad and makes regular radio broadcasts. CLS is Resident Orchestra at Opera Holland Park and gives concert series each year in the towns of Chatham, High Wycombe, Ipswich and King's Lynn
The CLS was founded by Richard Hickox in 1971 and he remained its music director until his death in November 2008. The CLS performs chamber orchestra and ensemble repertoire from the Baroque period to the present day, and has a particularly strong reputation for its programming focus on the human voice.
The Orchestra's achievements have been recognised over the years with prestigious awards including the Royal Philharmonic Society's Large Ensemble Award, the 'Best Opera Recording' Grammy for its recording of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, and the Arts, Business and Sustainability Award from national organisation Arts & Business, in recognition of the achievements of its partnership with principal sponsor MMC.
The Orchestra carries out a variety of education and community activities all over the UK. Musicians spend around 100 days a year making music with a wide range of community groups, young and old, across the UK. CLS aims to take music to those who might find the environment of the concert hall to be a barrier, whether geographically or socially, and to bring the fun and inspiration of live music into the community.
As of 2009, the orchestra's leader is Nicholas Ward.
The London Symphony Chorus, which joins the CLS for Elgar’s The Music Makers, was also closely associated with Richard Hickox who was Chorus Master and Music Director from 1976-1991. With the LSC he received a Grammy for Britten’s Peter Grimes and was their Conductor Emeritus. The London Symphony Chorus is one of our major symphonic concert choirs. The Chorus was formed in 1966 (originally as the LSO Chorus) to complement the work of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), and the full-time membership consists of over 150 singers. The LSC is self-managed by a council of nine elected representatives.
Whilst continuing to maintain a close association with the LSO the LSC is now autonomous and has developed an independent life allowing it to take part in performances and recordings with other orchestras as well as promoting its own projects.
After a concert in the Barbican Hilary Finch of The Times paid
the LSC the unusual compliment:-
"The supreme soloist of the
evening though was the London Symphony Chorus."
Andrew Litton(born May 16, 1959, New York City) is a graduate of The Fieldston School, and holds both undergraduate and Masters degrees in music from Juilliard.
Litton was Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra from 1988 to 1994. and is now its Conductor Laureate. He served for twelve seasons as Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra from 1994 to 2006. Since 2003, he has been Artistic Director of the Sommerfest concerts of the Minnesota Orchestra, and in June 2008, his contract in this post was extended to 2011. He has been Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in Norway since 2003. In June 2008, his contract with the Bergen Philharmonic was extended to the 2010-2011 season.
Litton's more than 60 recordings include a Grammy-winning William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast with Bryn Terfel and the Bournemouth Symphony, a critically-acclaimed set of Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos with pianist Stephen Hough, a live performance recording of Sweeney Todd with the New York Philharmonic (Grammy nomination), a Decca Walton Centennial boxed set, the complete Tchaikovsky Symphonies with the Bournemouth Symphony, the complete Rachmaninoff Symphonies with the Royal Philharmonic, Sergei Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, and many Gershwin recordings, both as conductor and pianist, with the Dallas Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, and Royal Philharmonic.
In 2003, he was awarded Yale University's Sanford Medal.
Felicity Joan Palmer, CBE is a mezzo-soprano (soprano until 1983) and professor of singing. Her operatic career has taken her to major opera houses in the UK, U.S. and Europe.
Palmer was born in 1944 in Cheltenham. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music and under Marianne Schech's guidance at the Munich College for Music and Theatre. In April 1970, she won first prize in the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Scholarship.
She made her operatic debut in 1971 as Dido in Dido and Æneas with the Kent Opera. In 1973, she made her U.S. debut with the Houston Grand Opera, and in 1975 debuted with English National Opera (ENO). She has since performed regularly at the world's major opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York; the Lyric Opera of Chicago; the San Francisco Opera; the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; La Scala, Milan; the Deutsche Oper Berlin; the Opéra Bastille in Paris; and the Glyndebourne and Wexford Festivals.
She is a professor at the Royal College of Music in London, and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in November 1993.
Palmer has also performed with Scottish Opera, Opera North and Welsh National Opera (WNO), and has performed and recorded Gilbert and Sullivan operas, as Katisha in The Mikado(ENO and WNO), Dame Carruthers in The Yeomen of the Guard (WNO) and Little Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore (WNO). She recently reprised her role of Katisha in English National Opera's much revived production of The Mikado at the London Coliseum.
Tickets: £24.00, £19.00, £16.00, £13.00
Book Tickets
(Concession of £1.50 for Under 16s, Over 60s, jobseekers, full-time
students, registered disabled. Group Rate: 10% off for groups of 8+. 10%
discount for booking the CLS Season of 4 or 5 concerts)
The Encore
Join CLS musicians in the bar after the concert for a chat and a ten-minute performance of light music.
This concert is supported by Orchestras Live