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Five Stars for An Eventful Morning in London from The Times
Wonderful new FIVE STAR review in The Times for An Eventful Morning in East London: 21st C. Violin Concertos with Harriet Mackenzie;
Get your copy: http://eso.co.uk/…/an-eventful-morning-in-east-london-21st…/
“Mackenzie’s playing is rivetingly incisive throughout, and Kenneth Woods, conductor obtains exemplary accompaniments from the English String Orchestra and English Symphony Orchestra.”
Classical review: Harriet Mackenzie: An Eventful Morning in East London
The violinist’s playing is rivetingly incisive throughout this recording of five 21st-century concertos
Richard Morrison
June 9 2017, 12:01am, The Times
Harriet Mackenzie shows her zest for adventure in this ambitious album
★★★★★
The recording’s title is a tease. An Eventful Morning in East London is the name (almost) of Rob Fokkens’s violin concerto, one of five 21st-century concertos played by the indefatigably adventurous violinist Harriet Mackenzie on this superb release. However, although Mackenzie is a Londoner, Fokkens is South African. So his East London,in the Eastern Cape, is 6,000 miles south of Shoreditch.
His concerto reflects it too. Fokkens has Charles Ives’s ability to enrich his own imaginatively orchestrated style with “found” music — in this case an outdoor African soundscape that seems to incorporate a passing funeral procession replete with snatches of Dies Irae as well as a jazz band.
That makes for a fascinating 13 minutes. Yet it’s just one highlight on an album mixing the work of two older composers — Paul Patterson and David Matthews (composer) — working in a generally tonal idiom with the quirky new generation, represented by Fokkens, Emily Doolittle and Deborah Pritchard.
What unites them is an ability to create something fresh out of existing material. Pritchard’s Wall of Water, for instance, is a response to a series of Maggi Hambling paintings. I’m glad they aren’t reproduced in the accompanying brochure, because Pritchard’s music — growing out of a tiny, semitonal twist cloaked in otherworldly harmonics — paints its own pictures in the imagination. It is profusely atmospheric and virtuosically challenging, and it rises to an intense cadenza (a bit too arpeggio-dependent, perhaps) before imploding to where it started.
Doolittle’s falling still has a similar atmospheric quality. The violin, representing a bird in flight, hovers over slow, lush string-clusters representing more inanimate sounds of nature. That suggests a latter-day Lark Ascending, but Doolittle’s style is far more astringent than Vaughan Williams and has a more elegiac hue.
So does Matthews’s Romanza, which, despite its name, is a curiously unsettling piece in which the soloist moves from moodily impressionistic rhapsody to enigmatic Viennese waltz, where the balance between pastiche and irony is never quite fixed. To me it spoke of youthful joys recollected into ruefulness, if not despair.
By contrast, Patterson’s Allusions for two solo violins and strings (Philippa Mo is the other excellent protagonist) is pure pleasure, three movements each riffing on a different operatic character. The first, brilliantly energetic and manically contrapuntal, alludes to Falstaff and his tangled love life. The second, called Mindscape, refers to Don Giovanni’s encounter with the Commendatore, with the music rising from dark rumination to nightmarish crisis. And the third is a glorious postmodern riff on Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro overture, full of dizzy syncopations.
Mackenzie’s playing is rivetingly incisive throughout, and Kenneth Woods, conductor obtains exemplary accompaniments from the English String Orchestra and English Symphony Orchestra.
(Nimbus)
ESO Earns Classical Music Magazine “Premiere of the Year” for Second Year in a Row with John Joubert’s Jane Eyre
For the second year in a row, the English Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director Kenneth Woods have received the Classical Music Magazine Premiere of the Year nod for the Midlands. Following on the 2015 selection of the premiere of Donald Fraser’s orchestration of the Elgar Piano Quintet at the Elgar Hall in the final concert of the ESO’s 2015 Elgar Pilgrimage, Christopher Morley, longtime senior music critic of the Birmingham Post, has made the ESO’s performance of John Joubert’s opera Jane eyre his 2016 Premiere of the Year.
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The ESO’s Avie Records recording of last year’s Premiere of the Year went on to be a Classic FM CD of the Week and spent 8 weeks in the classical Top 20, all the more reason to look forward to the release of Jane Eyre on Somm Recordings in March 2017.
“…. Kenneth Woods conducting an on-its-toes English Symphony Orchestra and a totally committed cast of 12, among whom April Fredrick as Jane and David Stout as Rochester were simply outstanding…Joubert as a composer is unafraid to encompass the achievements of previous operatic greats…unleashing a wonderfully engaging well-structured language of his own…”
CD Review: British Music Society on Elgar/Fraser Piano Quintet and Sea Pictures
A new review from the British Music Society by critic Chris Bye
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“THESE perceptive world-premiere transcriptions have deservedly won Edward Elgar some new friends. They plumb the emotional depths of a legendary English composer whose popular reputation can often be unfairly consigned to a regal Edwardian image.
“There is a fresh and evocative Elgarian depth about these two new exciting interpretations that breathe new life into the smaller-scale Piano Quintet and the lyrical Sea Songs. Listeners will uncover Elgar afresh, well beyond well-known regulars like the Last Night of the Proms’ hackneyed Land of Hope and Glory sing-song.
Even seasoned Elgar addicts, more familiar with the full panoply of Elgar’s tremendous chamber output, will welcome these interpretations which unashamedly give these two compositions a sparkling new palette of new orchestral colours.
“These well-worked scores are triumphantly transcribed and orchestrated by British composer and conductor, Donald Fraser, and amplify the melancholic side of a composer often only celebrated for his more strident, nationalistic pieces.This is luscious icing on a musical cake and enriches Elgar’s impressive archetypal recipe. A thoroughly engaging use of the original memorable tunes and harmonies are here delivered by the full power of a symphony orchestra. Mellow strings and a chorale of throaty brass dominate, with a distinctive touch of harps, thunderous rolling timpani and emphatic cymbal crashes. Typically Elgarian.
“Conductor, Kenneth Woods, makes a convincing ambassador, marshalling the two polished English orchestras with skill and enthusiasm in both premieres.
“Some strict purists may balk at the full orchestral and choir setting of the lilting Sea Pictures but, unfortunately for them, this recast version loses none of its gentle, engaging, appeal.
“It is pleasing to hear that this release won a place in Britain’s classical music top 10, exposing to many that there is another deeper side to our beloved Elgar quite apart from the traditional Pomp and Circumstance.”
CHRIS BYE
Classical CD Reviews Rave for Krenek Piano Concertos
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The popular blog Classical CD Reviews has an extensive review of the ESO’s latest recording for Toccata Classics. Critic Gavin Dixon says of the recording:
The performances do full justice to the music. Pianist Mikhail Korzhev is able to make even the most knotty of Krenek’s serial textures flow naturally. His tone is warm, and his phrasing ideally focussed. The orchestra copes well with what must be an unfamiliar idiom… the playing can never be faulted for accuracy or balance. Ken Woods leads vibrant readings, suitably broad in the First Concerto and suitably atmospheric in the Second.
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Musical Opinion on ESO/Elgar/Fraser “…gorgeous depths of tone…”
The current issue (January-March 2016) of Musical Opinion Magazine leads off its concert coverage with Christopher Morley’s rave review of the ESO’s October 10 premiere of Donald Fraser’s orchestration of the Elgar Piano Quintet.
The ESO’s recording of this “worthy addition to the Elgar canon” is released on Avie Records in May 2016.
ENGLISH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PRESENT AN ELGAR PILGRIMAGE
For Immediate Release
PERFORMANCES IN MALVERN, HEREFORD AND BIRMINGHAM
COLLABORATION WITH ACADEMIA MUSICA CHOIR AND
SINGERS FROM THREE CHOIRS FESTIVAL CHORUS
WORLD PREMIERE PERFORMANCES OF NEWLY-ARRANGED ELGAR WORKS
As the English Symphony Orchestra (ESO) continues its resurgence under Principal Conductor Kenneth Woods, it’s fitting that the ensemble, based in Elgar’s hometown of Worcester, presents An Elgar Pilgrimage, a four-day festival in October, celebrating the composer’s life and music. Repertoire ranging from Elgar’s earliest to his last, some of his most iconic works, music by contemporaries, new commissions and world-premieres will be performed in a trinity of locations associated with Elgar: the Cathedral in Hereford where he lived at Plas Gwyn from 1904 – 1912, The Forum Theatre in Malvern where he lived from 1891 – 1904, and in the hall which bears his name at the University of Birmingham where he was appointed the University’s first Professor of Music in 1905.
(Composer Donald Fraser)
“By celebrating the music of Elgar and his legacy across the Midlands,” says Woods, “we are also celebrating the orchestra’s rich history with this music and our own pride of place as the professional orchestra of Elgar country. Given that Elgar’s music, which I’ve loved and performed all my life, is so central to British musical discourse, it’s incredibly exciting to be able to share with our audiences a programme that gives our listeners a chance to hear some of his greatest music from new perspectives.”
The curtain rises on An Elgar Pilgrimage on Wednesday, 7 October at Hereford Cathedral and brings together three of the region’s leading musical organisations: select members of the Three Choirs Festival Chorus; Academia Musica, the scholars choir of the Hereford Sixth Form College; and the English String Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Woods. The programme features two world-premieres, a virtuoso work for strings by Elgar, and an audience favourite by one of Elgar’s English contemporaries. The concert opener, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams was first performed in 1910 as part of the Three Choirs Festival. The ESO’s composer-in-association Philip Sawyers’ Songs of Loss and Regret was commissioned last year to commemorate the 100thanniversary of the outbreak of World War I; featuring soprano soloist April Fredrick, the work receives its world-premiere on this concert. Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, scored for string quartet and string orchestra, was composed in 1905 for the newly-formed London Symphony Orchestra. Elgar’s string writing has inspired the Elgar Pilgrimage’s Guest Composer Donald Fraser, who lived and worked for many years at Brinkwells, Elgar’s Sussex cottage. The climax of the Elgar Pilgrimage’s opening concert is the premiere of Fraser’s arrangement of the iconicSea Pictures for choir and string orchestra. “What Donald has done is quite incredible,” remarks Woods. “He’s not added, changed or removed a single note of Elgar’s work, but has created a new, flexible sound world between two homogenous ensembles.” The performance continues the successful collaboration between the ESO and Academia Musica, who in the spring won critical acclaim for their performance of Mozart’s Requiem at London’s St. John’s Smith Square, and marks a renewed association with the Three Choirs Festival.
Soprano April Fredrick
Woods and the ESO return to the Malvern Theatres on Thursday, October 8, to perform one of Elgar’s earliest works as well as one of his most revered, both put into context alongside a great 19th century symphony. TheFroissart Overture was Elgar’s first large-scale orchestral work. Written in 1890, it was commissioned for that year’s Three Choirs Festival. Twenty years later, Elgar penned a work that became an instant hit, his Violin Concerto. This performance will feature Alexander Sitkovetsky, a protégé of Yehudi Menuhin, former Principal Guest Conductor of the ESO, who was indelibly associated with the work, having made the legendary recording with the composer on the podium. The influence on Elgar of continental European composers will be heard in one of his favourite works, Brahms’ Symphony No. 3, a work that served as the focus of his first lecture at the University of Birmingham.
Elgar and Brahms will be side by side again for a chamber music concert on Friday, 9 October, at the University of Birmingham’s Elgar Concert Hall. ESO guest artists violinists Alexander Sitkovetsky and Tamsin Waley-Cohen, violist Louise Lansdown, cellist Matthew Sharp and pianist Clare Hammond, will come together to perform Brahms’ Piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 25, the first of his three works in the genre, and Elgar’s Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 85, one of the composer’s latest works that was written at Brinkwells in 1919.
Elgar’s Piano Quintet features again in An Elgar Pilgrimage’s closing concert on Saturday, 10 October at the Elgar Concert Hall, this time in a world-premiere performance of Donald Fraser’s orchestration of the work. Another arrangement opens the programme, that by Elgar of J. S. Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, one of the composer’s final compositions. In between comes Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, the first great song cycle written by Gustav Mahler, who conducted Elgar’s Sea Pictures and Enigma Variations during his final season as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 1910-11.
An Elgar Pilgrimage is supported in part by Arts Council England.
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All media enquiries, interview and image request, please contact Melanne Mueller,melanne@musiccointernational.com, 
+44 (0) 20 8698 6933
For further information about An Elgar Pilgrimage, please visit http://eso.co.uk/?page_id=2270
For further information about Kenneth Woods, please visit http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/
For further information about the English Symphony Orchestra, please visit http://eso.co.uk
AN ELGAR PILGRIMAGE
English Symphony Orchestra
English String Orchestra
Kenneth Woods – Principal Conductor
Donald Fraser – Guest Composer
7 – 10 October 2015
Hereford, Malvern, Birmingham
Wednesday, 7 October
7:30 pm
(pre-concert talk at 6:30 pm)
Ralph Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis
Philip Sawyers Songs of Loss and Regret (world premiere)
April Fredrick soprano
Edward Elgar Introduction and Allegro for Strings
Elgar/Fraser Sea Pictures (world premiere of new version for choir and strings)
English String Orchestra
Academia Musica
Three Choirs Voices
Kenneth Woods conductor
Hereford Cathedral
5 College Cloisters, Cathedral Close
Hereford HR1 2NG
Tickets £25, £20, £18, £15. Seniors 25% discount, children and students 50% discount
Hereford Courtyard Theatre Box Office: http://www.courtyard.org.uk/events/an-elgar-pilgrimage-sea-pictures-premiere/, 01432 340 555
Thursday, 8 October
7:45 pm
(pre-concert talk at 6:30 pm)
Elgar Overture “Froissart”, Op. 19
Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90
Elgar Violin Concerto, Op. 61
Alexander Sitkovetsky violin
Malvern Theatres
Grange Road
Malvern, Worcestershire WR14 3HB
English Symphony Orchestra
Kenneth Woods conductor
Tickets £22.96 – £33.04 (inclusive of 12% booking fee)
Malvern Theatres Box Office: http://www.malvern-theatres.co.uk/events/event/english-symphony-orchestra-2015/, 01684 892 277
Friday, 9 October
7:30 pm (pre-concert talk at 6:45 pm)
Brahms Piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 25
Elgar Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 85
Elgar Concert Hall
University of Birmingham
Bramall Music Building,
Birmingham B15 2TT
Alexander Sitkovetsky and Tamsin Waley-Cohen violins
Louise Lansdown viola
Matthew Sharp cello
Clare Hammond piano
Tickets £20, £15, £10
Town Hall & Symphony Hall Box Office: http://www.thsh.co.uk/event/elgar-pilgrimage-brahms-and-elgar-chamber-music-on-an-orchestral-scale/, 0121 345 0600
Saturday, 10 October
4:00 pm (pre-cocnert talk at 3:15 pm)
J. S. Bach/Elgar Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, Op. 86
Mahler Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer)
Njabulo Madlala baritone
Elgar/Fraser Symphonic Realisation of Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 84 (world premiere)
Elgar Concert Hall
University of Birmingham
Bramall Music Building,
Birmingham B15 2TT
Tickets £20, £15, £10
Town Hall & Symphony Hall Box Office: http://www.thsh.co.uk/event/elgar-pilgrimage-elgars-war-symphony-world-premier/, 0121 345 0600
Beethoven the Revolutionary
19 June, 2015
7:30 PM
English Symphony Orchestra
Kenneth Woods- principal conductor
Magna Carta Celebrations at Worcester Cathedral
8 College Yard, Worcester WR1 2LA
Mozart- Overture to the Marriage of Figaro
Beethoven- Overture and Incidental Music from Egmont
Ben Humphrey- narrator
April Fredrick- soprano
Beethoven- Symphony no. 3 “Eroica”
Tickets £20, £15 from Worcester Live 01905 611427
Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, is now one of the most beloved operas in the repertoire, but his setting of Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto, in which servants and aristocrats are depicted as not only co-equal human beings, but in which the servants outwit their masters, was considered wildly radical and provocative in its day. No composer has more eloquently argued for the cause of human freedom than Beethoven- his incidental music for Goethe’s Egmont brings to life one nation’s struggle for liberty as a powerful metaphor for the struggle for freedom across generations, as does his Third Symphony, originally written in fervent sympathy with the French Revolution. Beethoven changed the title from “Bonaparte” to “Eroica” when the French leader crowned himself Emperor of France. For Beethoven, victory and freedom belonged to all who fight for it.
Care Home Concerts
Our next Care Home Concert day is December 19th when the ESO String Quartet (George Ewart, Jacqui Allen, Helen Roberts amd Corinne Frost) will be visiting 3 homes in Malvern: Bradbury Court, Davenham and Perrins House. Our Christmas Challenge, to raise funds for the series in 2015, will begin in earnest on December 4h.