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41st Season 2009/2010
webcasts 2009 Programme Notes for 12th February
Great Hall Lancaster University
Thursday 12th February 2009 at 7.30pm
Thursday 12th February 2009 at 7.30pm
György Ligeti (1923-2006)
arr. Elgar Howarth
Mysteries of the Macabre*
György Ligeti
Chamber Concerto
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
arr. after Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
Das Lied von der Erde**
arr. Elgar Howarth
Mysteries of the Macabre*
György Ligeti
Chamber Concerto
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
arr. after Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
Das Lied von der Erde**
Psappha
Conrad Marshall flute
Rachael Clegg oboe
Dov Goldberg clarinet
Colin Pownall clarinet
Ben Hudson bassoon
Rebecca Goldberg french horn
Helen Quayle trumpet
Phil Goodwin trombone
Richard Casey piano/celesta/harmonium/harpsichord
Paul Janes piano/celesta
Michael Harper percussion
David Lewis percussion
Tom McKinney mandolin
David Routledge violin
Martin Clark violin
Raymond Lester viola
Jennifer Langridge cello
Anita Langridge double bass
Tracey Redfern solo trumpet*
Jane Irwin mezzo-soprano**
John Graham-Hall tenor**
Nicholas Kok conductor
Mysteries of the MacabreConrad Marshall flute
Rachael Clegg oboe
Dov Goldberg clarinet
Colin Pownall clarinet
Ben Hudson bassoon
Rebecca Goldberg french horn
Helen Quayle trumpet
Phil Goodwin trombone
Richard Casey piano/celesta/harmonium/harpsichord
Paul Janes piano/celesta
Michael Harper percussion
David Lewis percussion
Tom McKinney mandolin
David Routledge violin
Martin Clark violin
Raymond Lester viola
Jennifer Langridge cello
Anita Langridge double bass
Tracey Redfern solo trumpet*
Jane Irwin mezzo-soprano**
John Graham-Hall tenor**
Nicholas Kok conductor
György Ligeti (1923-2006)
arr. Elgar Howarth
The Macabre in question is Le Grand Macabre, the opera Ligeti wrote between 1974 and 1977. Put very briefly, the opera is about a drunkard, a pair of young lovers who are permanently on the point of coition, a boy prince, and an astronomer and his wife who are into sado-masochism. All are inhabitants of Brueghelland – a country which is visited by a man who claims to be the Grim Reaper – and which does indeed seem to meet with some catastrophe, though after the event the only person to have died is Death himself. Mysteries are fairly ubiquitous here, though the piece with the title Mysteries of the Macabre is based on the three-part aria sung by the Chief of the Secret Police in the third of the opera’s four scenes. This character is sung by a coloratura soprano, who appears in three disguises (as bird of prey, spider and octopus) and each time delivers a message of warning in nonsense code made the more undecipherable by musical acrobatics.
Elgar Howarth arranged this extraordinary, virtuoso showstopper in 1988 for trumpet and piano. Ligeti subsequently approved Howarth’s arrangement of the score for chamber ensemble, to create a mini-concerto.
Elgar Howarth arranged this extraordinary, virtuoso showstopper in 1988 for trumpet and piano. Ligeti subsequently approved Howarth’s arrangement of the score for chamber ensemble, to create a mini-concerto.
György Ligeti
Chamber Concerto
I. Corrente
II. Calmo, sostenuto
III. Movimento preciso e meccanico
IV. Presto
Composed in 1969-70, this piece helped make the ensemble of soloists a standard line-up for new music, though Ligeti’s treatment has had few equals in terms of fantasy and delightfulness. It begins with the instruments moving within a narrow range, sliding in register, until suddenly the whole pitch space is opened up by the arrival of piled octaves. Their pure sound is soon muddied, and wonderful confusion resumes: at one point the wind instruments start to sing a massively amplified folktune. Finally the music explodes into dispersed melody, only to be clamped again. ‘My general idea for this movement’, Ligeti has remarked, ‘was the surface of a stretch of water, where everything takes place below the surface.’
The second movement takes a different route through dense chords, jostling movements and strains of melody sounding like echoes of folksong or Romantic music, such as are played by a plaintive trio of horn, oboe d’amore and trombone. After a fortissimo climax, something absolutely inevitable and yet totally unexpected turns up around the corner: a tritone sounding quietly in octaves. From this develops a second part of the movement, which beautifully disintegrates …
… to be replaced by an extraordinary musical machine, a disconnected chirruping of regular rhythms from different odd ensembles. The presto finale continues the mechanical feeling a little, but the twitterings are now rustlings that develop and echo through clusters, single intervals and arpeggios, and that race around the small orchestra in a perpetuum mobile of great virtuosity. Once again, as in the first and second movements, one way out of the maze appears to be through melody, and a line starts out on the horn, most positive of instruments. But the melody quickly begins to lose its distinctiveness, and the perpetual motion continues until another tritone, like a single light of gathering intensity, begins to shine through the texture and freeze the music, leaving only disjointed echoes.
The second movement takes a different route through dense chords, jostling movements and strains of melody sounding like echoes of folksong or Romantic music, such as are played by a plaintive trio of horn, oboe d’amore and trombone. After a fortissimo climax, something absolutely inevitable and yet totally unexpected turns up around the corner: a tritone sounding quietly in octaves. From this develops a second part of the movement, which beautifully disintegrates …
… to be replaced by an extraordinary musical machine, a disconnected chirruping of regular rhythms from different odd ensembles. The presto finale continues the mechanical feeling a little, but the twitterings are now rustlings that develop and echo through clusters, single intervals and arpeggios, and that race around the small orchestra in a perpetuum mobile of great virtuosity. Once again, as in the first and second movements, one way out of the maze appears to be through melody, and a line starts out on the horn, most positive of instruments. But the melody quickly begins to lose its distinctiveness, and the perpetual motion continues until another tritone, like a single light of gathering intensity, begins to shine through the texture and freeze the music, leaving only disjointed echoes.
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
arr. after Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
Das Lied von der Erde
Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde
Der Einsame im Herbst
Von der Jugend
Von der Schönheit
Der Trunkene im Frühling
Der Abschied
The eastward turn of so many European artists around the start of the century – Yeats, Toulouse-Lautrec and Stravinsky provide fairly miscellaneous examples – was only partly a matter of learning new techniques; the more fundamental search was for a new objectivity. But not for Mahler. In his one essay in orientalism, Das Lied von der Erde (‘The Song of the Earth’, 1907-9), he included a fair dash of pentatonics, especially in the third song of the cycle, and also a loosening of rhythmic and harmonic coordination, but there is no sense of emotion being formalized by going through Chinese channels of communication. Indeed, placed beside, say, Stravinsky’s Three Japanese Lyrics of just a few years later, Das Lied von der Erde gives its Far Eastern poets (translated by Hans Bethge, the Arthur Waley of German culture) almost shockingly European voices: forceful, declamatory, immediate.
Mahler called the work a symphony, and must have chosen the texts partly with an ear towards symphonic form. The first song, for example, has certain qualities of a sonata allegro (repeated exposition, with two contrasting thematic areas), but one abruptly curtailed; then come alternating slow movements and scherzos, followed by an adagio finale which, as in Mahler’s Third Symphony and his Ninth yet to come, seems to be the whole work’s inevitable destination: this finale, ‘Der Abschied’, is about as long as all the other movements put together. There is also another kind of symphonic dialogue going on between the voices. Both seek escape from the world, but where the tenor’s route leads ebulliently through the neck of a bottle, the mezzo is singing of evening and autumn as of death.
The present version of the work has its origins in a plan of Schoenberg’s for his Society for Private Musical Performances. Das Lied von der Erde is not a piece that could be performed with piano accompaniment: the idea is countermanded by the scale of the more vigorous, tutti numbers (especially the first song), by the necessity for separate rhythmic strands in others (such as the second), and by the importance of woodwind and percussion colours (also particularly in the second song). Schoenberg’s solution was to use a chamber orchestra, slightly bigger than was normal for the Society, with quintets of winds and strings, piano, harmonium and percussion. He drafted a good chunk of the first song for such an ensemble, but the project got no further until the 1980s, when the German conductor Rainer Riehn pushed it through to a conclusion.
Hearing the work more intimately may bring some surprises. The tenor’s role is no longer to bellow over a Mahlerian orchestra in full cry; he can sing. The mezzo’s interplay with smaller groupings can be more assiduously timed and coloured. The instruments can realize the music’s flexibility, its sometimes startling rhythmic and harmonic dissonances. But we may be startled too by the music’s return to the dimensions of a palm court orchestra, and by strains of kitsch normally concealed by Mahler’s full scoring. The journey the work makes goes all the way from a Viennese café to a solitary figure on the edge of the end of the world, and leaves us perhaps feeling there is now more ‘Song of the Earth’, not less.
Notes by Paul Griffiths © 2009
BiographiesMahler called the work a symphony, and must have chosen the texts partly with an ear towards symphonic form. The first song, for example, has certain qualities of a sonata allegro (repeated exposition, with two contrasting thematic areas), but one abruptly curtailed; then come alternating slow movements and scherzos, followed by an adagio finale which, as in Mahler’s Third Symphony and his Ninth yet to come, seems to be the whole work’s inevitable destination: this finale, ‘Der Abschied’, is about as long as all the other movements put together. There is also another kind of symphonic dialogue going on between the voices. Both seek escape from the world, but where the tenor’s route leads ebulliently through the neck of a bottle, the mezzo is singing of evening and autumn as of death.
The present version of the work has its origins in a plan of Schoenberg’s for his Society for Private Musical Performances. Das Lied von der Erde is not a piece that could be performed with piano accompaniment: the idea is countermanded by the scale of the more vigorous, tutti numbers (especially the first song), by the necessity for separate rhythmic strands in others (such as the second), and by the importance of woodwind and percussion colours (also particularly in the second song). Schoenberg’s solution was to use a chamber orchestra, slightly bigger than was normal for the Society, with quintets of winds and strings, piano, harmonium and percussion. He drafted a good chunk of the first song for such an ensemble, but the project got no further until the 1980s, when the German conductor Rainer Riehn pushed it through to a conclusion.
Hearing the work more intimately may bring some surprises. The tenor’s role is no longer to bellow over a Mahlerian orchestra in full cry; he can sing. The mezzo’s interplay with smaller groupings can be more assiduously timed and coloured. The instruments can realize the music’s flexibility, its sometimes startling rhythmic and harmonic dissonances. But we may be startled too by the music’s return to the dimensions of a palm court orchestra, and by strains of kitsch normally concealed by Mahler’s full scoring. The journey the work makes goes all the way from a Viennese café to a solitary figure on the edge of the end of the world, and leaves us perhaps feeling there is now more ‘Song of the Earth’, not less.
Notes by Paul Griffiths © 2009
Nicholas Kok is an extremely versatile conductor and musician. In the concert hall, the opera house and on radio he has conducted numerous world and British premieres, including works by Birtwistle, Holt, Maxwell Davies, Reich, Turnage and Xenakis. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the leading new music ensemble Psappha, with which he has recorded and toured extensively. From 1996 to 2006 Nicholas was Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of Sinfonia ViVA (formerly East of England Orchestra), with which he performed an extremely large and varied repertoire and is now the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor.
For English National Opera he has conducted Orfeo, Il Ritorno d’Ulisse, The Fairy Queen, The Marriage of Figaro, Così fan tutte, King Priam, a double-bill of world premieres by Turnage - The Country of the Blind and Twice through the Heart - in a joint production with the South Bank and the Aldeburgh Festival, and the world premiere of Alec Roth and Vikram Seth’s opera Arion and the Dolphin. He made his Opera North debut conducting the world premiere of Simon Holt’s The Nightingale’s to Blame at the Huddersfield Festival in 1998, where he also conducted the British premiere of Hindenburg, a major new work by Steve Reich. He returned to Opera North for a new production of Gluck’s Orfeo in 2004 and in 2007 with a new production of Les Noces/Dido and Aeneas. Festivals at which he has appeared include Edinburgh, BBC Proms, Orkney, Cheltenham, Montepulciano and “Sound Around” in Copehhagen/Malmo.
Nicholas Kok made his debut at the Stuttgart Staatsoper in 1997 conducting Purcell’s King Arthur, and returned for a new production of L’incoronazione di Poppea and revivals of Hänsel und Gretel and L’italania in Algieri. For Cologne Opera he conducted Le nozze di Figaro and a new production of Semele, which he also directed in Graz. In Klagenfurt he conducted highly acclaimed productions of Handel’s Teseo and Cavalli’s Il Giasone, and for CPO, Porto, Nicholas conducted a new production of L’Elisir d’Amore. He played a large part in setting up Almeida Opera for which he conducted Mario the Magician by Stephen Oliver and A Family Affair by Julian Grant. For Opera Factory London he conducted Poppea, Dido and Aeneas, Cosi fan tutte, The Magic Flute, Curlew River, The Bacchae (Xenakis), Sarajevo (Osborne) and Reimann’s The Ghost Sonata and for OF Zürich La Calisto and Marschner’s Der Vampyr, in his own version for chamber orchestra. Other operatic engagements have included Don Giovanni for ETO, Il Barbiere for DGOS, Cendrillon by Pauline Viardot for Opera Rara and Gerald Barry’s The Intelligence Park for Almeida Festival/Opera Factory. For McKinsey/WDR/Arte he conducted the world premieres of Alexander Krampe’s reworkings of Rousseau’s Pygmalion and Bizet’s Carmen.
Orchestras and ensembles he has worked with include the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Scottish National, Radio Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Scottish Symphony, BBC Concert Orchestra, RTE National Symphony Ireland, Ulster Orchestra, Halle, Het Gelders Orkest, Liepaja SO, Munich Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Bournemouth Sinfonietta, Jenaer Philharmonie, Orchestra of St John’s Smith Square, Orquestra Nacional do Porto, Philippines Philharmonic and the Almeida, Endymion, Nash, Premiere, Remix and Resonanz Ensembles.
Nicholas Kok works frequently with the BBC Singers (with whom he has recorded a huge repertoire) and Schola Cantorum. He has recorded for radio and television, and has written and arranged music for both mediums, as well as working as assistant/banda conductor on numerous recordings for Opera Rara and Chandos. He has worked closely with many choreographers (as conductor and arranger) and has conducted for Scottish Ballet (Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet and Sleeping Beauty, as well as three programmes at the Edinburgh Festival) and Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre. He played the premiere of his own music for Scottish Dance Theatre’s “Out of the House” performances, and the world premiere of his own “7th Degree” was performed by Julian Bliss and Viva, conducted by the composer.
Future plans include Gluck Orphée et Euridice for Staatstheater Stuttgart, Handel Agrippina at the Teatro Sao Carlos Lisbon, the world premiere of Maxwell Davies’ new opera at the Royal Academy of Music, Stravinsky with Scottish Ballet at the Edinburgh International Festival, Mendelssohn and Rangström with Stockholm Royal Ballet and concerts with Psappha and Viva.
MEZZO SOPRANO Jane Irwin studied at Lancaster University and at the RNCM. Her many prizes include the 1993 Singers' Competition at the Geneva International Music Competition and the 1991 Decca Kathleen Ferrier Prize.
As a concert and recital singer Jane Irwin has appeared regularly in Britain, Europe and America. In November 2002 she made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony conducted by Mariss Jansons. This followed on from highly successful concerts in 1999 of Mahler Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen with the same forces at the BBC Proms and the Berlin Festival. She returned to Pittsburgh in 2006 for Mahler Das Lied von der Erde with Sir Andrew Davis. She made her debut with the San Francisco Symphony singing Handel Lucrezia in 2005, returning in 2006 for Mozart Coronation Mass and in January 2007 sang Chausson Poème de L’amour et de la mer for the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein in New York. She has sung Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra under Michael Gielen and Mahler Das Lied von der Erde for the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Kent Nagano, the BBC Philharmonic with Vassily Sinaisky and Elgar Sea Pictures and Gerontius with the Philharmonia and Sir Andrew Davis. She has worked with the Orchestre de Paris, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the San Diego Orchestra, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Spanish National Orchestra (Zemlinsky Eine Florentinisches Tragödie and Schreker Funf Gesänge), Finnish Radio Symphony, Academia di Santa Cecilia in Rome (Mahler Das Klagende Lied), Sao Paolo Symphony, and with Semyon Bychkov, Libor Pesek, Donald Runnicles, Antonio Pappano, Matthias Bamert, Trevor Pinnock, Mark Elder, Paul Daniel, Joseph Swensen, Richard Armstrong and Jakov Kreizberg. She has given recitals at the Châtelet, Paris, London, Geneva, Aix-en-Provence and Japan.
For English National Opera he has conducted Orfeo, Il Ritorno d’Ulisse, The Fairy Queen, The Marriage of Figaro, Così fan tutte, King Priam, a double-bill of world premieres by Turnage - The Country of the Blind and Twice through the Heart - in a joint production with the South Bank and the Aldeburgh Festival, and the world premiere of Alec Roth and Vikram Seth’s opera Arion and the Dolphin. He made his Opera North debut conducting the world premiere of Simon Holt’s The Nightingale’s to Blame at the Huddersfield Festival in 1998, where he also conducted the British premiere of Hindenburg, a major new work by Steve Reich. He returned to Opera North for a new production of Gluck’s Orfeo in 2004 and in 2007 with a new production of Les Noces/Dido and Aeneas. Festivals at which he has appeared include Edinburgh, BBC Proms, Orkney, Cheltenham, Montepulciano and “Sound Around” in Copehhagen/Malmo.
Nicholas Kok made his debut at the Stuttgart Staatsoper in 1997 conducting Purcell’s King Arthur, and returned for a new production of L’incoronazione di Poppea and revivals of Hänsel und Gretel and L’italania in Algieri. For Cologne Opera he conducted Le nozze di Figaro and a new production of Semele, which he also directed in Graz. In Klagenfurt he conducted highly acclaimed productions of Handel’s Teseo and Cavalli’s Il Giasone, and for CPO, Porto, Nicholas conducted a new production of L’Elisir d’Amore. He played a large part in setting up Almeida Opera for which he conducted Mario the Magician by Stephen Oliver and A Family Affair by Julian Grant. For Opera Factory London he conducted Poppea, Dido and Aeneas, Cosi fan tutte, The Magic Flute, Curlew River, The Bacchae (Xenakis), Sarajevo (Osborne) and Reimann’s The Ghost Sonata and for OF Zürich La Calisto and Marschner’s Der Vampyr, in his own version for chamber orchestra. Other operatic engagements have included Don Giovanni for ETO, Il Barbiere for DGOS, Cendrillon by Pauline Viardot for Opera Rara and Gerald Barry’s The Intelligence Park for Almeida Festival/Opera Factory. For McKinsey/WDR/Arte he conducted the world premieres of Alexander Krampe’s reworkings of Rousseau’s Pygmalion and Bizet’s Carmen.
Orchestras and ensembles he has worked with include the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Scottish National, Radio Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Scottish Symphony, BBC Concert Orchestra, RTE National Symphony Ireland, Ulster Orchestra, Halle, Het Gelders Orkest, Liepaja SO, Munich Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Bournemouth Sinfonietta, Jenaer Philharmonie, Orchestra of St John’s Smith Square, Orquestra Nacional do Porto, Philippines Philharmonic and the Almeida, Endymion, Nash, Premiere, Remix and Resonanz Ensembles.
Nicholas Kok works frequently with the BBC Singers (with whom he has recorded a huge repertoire) and Schola Cantorum. He has recorded for radio and television, and has written and arranged music for both mediums, as well as working as assistant/banda conductor on numerous recordings for Opera Rara and Chandos. He has worked closely with many choreographers (as conductor and arranger) and has conducted for Scottish Ballet (Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet and Sleeping Beauty, as well as three programmes at the Edinburgh Festival) and Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre. He played the premiere of his own music for Scottish Dance Theatre’s “Out of the House” performances, and the world premiere of his own “7th Degree” was performed by Julian Bliss and Viva, conducted by the composer.
Future plans include Gluck Orphée et Euridice for Staatstheater Stuttgart, Handel Agrippina at the Teatro Sao Carlos Lisbon, the world premiere of Maxwell Davies’ new opera at the Royal Academy of Music, Stravinsky with Scottish Ballet at the Edinburgh International Festival, Mendelssohn and Rangström with Stockholm Royal Ballet and concerts with Psappha and Viva.
MEZZO SOPRANO Jane Irwin studied at Lancaster University and at the RNCM. Her many prizes include the 1993 Singers' Competition at the Geneva International Music Competition and the 1991 Decca Kathleen Ferrier Prize.
As a concert and recital singer Jane Irwin has appeared regularly in Britain, Europe and America. In November 2002 she made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony conducted by Mariss Jansons. This followed on from highly successful concerts in 1999 of Mahler Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen with the same forces at the BBC Proms and the Berlin Festival. She returned to Pittsburgh in 2006 for Mahler Das Lied von der Erde with Sir Andrew Davis. She made her debut with the San Francisco Symphony singing Handel Lucrezia in 2005, returning in 2006 for Mozart Coronation Mass and in January 2007 sang Chausson Poème de L’amour et de la mer for the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein in New York. She has sung Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra under Michael Gielen and Mahler Das Lied von der Erde for the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Kent Nagano, the BBC Philharmonic with Vassily Sinaisky and Elgar Sea Pictures and Gerontius with the Philharmonia and Sir Andrew Davis. She has worked with the Orchestre de Paris, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the San Diego Orchestra, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Spanish National Orchestra (Zemlinsky Eine Florentinisches Tragödie and Schreker Funf Gesänge), Finnish Radio Symphony, Academia di Santa Cecilia in Rome (Mahler Das Klagende Lied), Sao Paolo Symphony, and with Semyon Bychkov, Libor Pesek, Donald Runnicles, Antonio Pappano, Matthias Bamert, Trevor Pinnock, Mark Elder, Paul Daniel, Joseph Swensen, Richard Armstrong and Jakov Kreizberg. She has given recitals at the Châtelet, Paris, London, Geneva, Aix-en-Provence and Japan.
Jane Irwin has sung regularly at the Edinburgh International Festival, most recently Mahler Kindertotenlieder (arranged by Edward Harper) with the Hebrides Ensemble and the title role in Dido and Aeneas at the 2007 Festival. Other concerts at the Edinburgh Festival have included Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and Jonathan Nott, recitals at the Queen’s Hall, Mahler Rückert Lieder and Das Lied von der Erde, Honegger Le Bucher de St Jeanne, the title role of Poro by Handel with Emmanuelle Haïm, Verdi Requiem with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Myung Whun Chung, a Beethoven evening with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Günther Herbig, and Britten Phaedra at the Queen’s Hall with the Scottish Ensemble. With the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra she sang Wagner Wesendonck Lieder with Walter Weller, and Elgar Dream of Gerontius, The Apostles and The Kingdom, Mahler Das Lied von der Erder, Bernstein Symphony No 1 Jeremiah and Mahler Symphony No 2 with Sakari Oramo. Other engagements have included Mahler Symphony No 2 and Rückert-Lieder under Gerard Schwarz with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Elgar Dream of Gerontius, Sea Pictures and The Music Makers with the Hallé and Mark Elder (the latter recorded on the Hallé’s own label); Brahms Alto Rhapsody with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Frankfurt and London also with Mark Elder. She has sung Elgar Sea Pictures with the MDR Symphony Orchestra in Leipzig, The Music Makers and The Apostles with the Dutch Radio Philharmonic, Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the Zurich Tonhalle and Ivor Bolton, Schoenberg Gurrelieder in Barcelona, Das Lied von der Erde in Madrid, and Honegger Le Bucher de St Jeanne for the Orchestre National de Lyon both with Jun Märkl. She has also worked with the BBC Philharmonic (Elgar The Kingdom and Mahler Das Lied von der Erde), BBC National Orchestra of Wales (Berlioz La Mort de Cléopâtre and Mahler Kindertotenlieder), the BBC Symphony Orchestra, (Elliott Carter Of Rewaking in the presence of the composer and conducted by David Robertson), London Sinfonietta (European première of Carter’s In the distances of Sleep), Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra (Tippett’s A child of our Time and Kindertotenlieder), the English Concert, the Gabrieli Consort and Players, and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (Handel Lucrezia and Resphighi Il Tramonto at the Wigmore Hall).
In 1995 she made her debut at the ROH in a new production of Götterdämmerung/Second Norn under Bernard Haitink, and returned in the Autumn of 2003 to sing Suzuki/Madam Butterfly. In the summer of 2000 she made her debut at the Bayreuth Festival in Die Walküre. For Scottish Opera she has sung Suzuki/Madam Butterfly in a new production by David McVicar, Maddalena in Rigoletto and Waltraute/Götterdämmerung in a hugely successful Ring Cycle directed by Tim Albery and conducted by Richard Armstrong at the 2003 Edinburgh International Festival, Fatima in Weber's Oberon at the 2004 Edinburgh Festival and Thea in Tippett's The Knot Garden. For Opera North she sang Fenena in Nabucco in concert, which was recorded by Chandos. For English National Opera she sang Brangäne/Tristan und Isolde with great success and in the Autumn of 2006 she made her US operatic debut singing Brangäne for San Francisco Opera. In 2007 she made her debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago singing Mère Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites.
Recent and future concerts include Light of Life by Elgar with the Dutch Radio Philharmonic, Frank Martin “In terra Pax” with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Mahler Symphony No 3 on tour with the Mahler Youth Orchestra, Mahler 2 with the RTE in Dublin, Haydn Nelson Mass with the RSNO and Walter Weller, Beethoven 9 with the BBC Philharmonic at the Proms, and Tippett A Child of our Time with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the 2008 Edinburgh International Festival, where she will also sing Anezka in The Two Widows by Smetana with Scottish Opera.. In 2011 she will sing Brangäne in a new production of Tristan und Isolde for the Deutsche Opera Berlin.
In 1995 she made her debut at the ROH in a new production of Götterdämmerung/Second Norn under Bernard Haitink, and returned in the Autumn of 2003 to sing Suzuki/Madam Butterfly. In the summer of 2000 she made her debut at the Bayreuth Festival in Die Walküre. For Scottish Opera she has sung Suzuki/Madam Butterfly in a new production by David McVicar, Maddalena in Rigoletto and Waltraute/Götterdämmerung in a hugely successful Ring Cycle directed by Tim Albery and conducted by Richard Armstrong at the 2003 Edinburgh International Festival, Fatima in Weber's Oberon at the 2004 Edinburgh Festival and Thea in Tippett's The Knot Garden. For Opera North she sang Fenena in Nabucco in concert, which was recorded by Chandos. For English National Opera she sang Brangäne/Tristan und Isolde with great success and in the Autumn of 2006 she made her US operatic debut singing Brangäne for San Francisco Opera. In 2007 she made her debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago singing Mère Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites.
Recent and future concerts include Light of Life by Elgar with the Dutch Radio Philharmonic, Frank Martin “In terra Pax” with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Mahler Symphony No 3 on tour with the Mahler Youth Orchestra, Mahler 2 with the RTE in Dublin, Haydn Nelson Mass with the RSNO and Walter Weller, Beethoven 9 with the BBC Philharmonic at the Proms, and Tippett A Child of our Time with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the 2008 Edinburgh International Festival, where she will also sing Anezka in The Two Widows by Smetana with Scottish Opera.. In 2011 she will sing Brangäne in a new production of Tristan und Isolde for the Deutsche Opera Berlin.
John Graham-Hall studied at King’s College‚ Cambridge and the Royal College of Music. He has sung with all the major British opera companies where roles include Albert Herring (Royal Opera House‚ Covent Garden)‚ Albert Herring‚ Vanya Kudrjas Katya Kabanova‚ Flute Midsummer Night’s Dream and Bob Boles Peter Grimes (Glyndebourne Festival Opera)‚ Valzacchi Der Rosenkavalier‚ Don Basilio‚ Monostatos‚ Lysander A Midsummer Night’s Dream‚ Herod Salome (English National Opera)‚ Cassio Otello (Welsh National Opera)‚ Eisenstein‚ Schoolmaster The Cunning Little Vixen (Scottish Opera) and Aschenbach‚ Lysander‚ Albert Herring and Ferrando Cosi fan tutte (Glyndebourne Touring Opera).
As one of our leading international singers his operatic engagements abroad have included the Dancing Master Ariadne auf Naxos‚ Cassio and Basilio (La Monnaie in Brussels)‚ two roles in Moses & Aaron (Netherlands Opera‚ Salzburg Festival and recorded for Deutsche Grammophon). He sang Shapkin From the House of the Dead (Nice Opera)‚ Lysander (Paris‚ Lyon‚ Caen‚ Montpellier‚ Rome‚ Ravenna Festival Krenik’s Der Diktatur and Schwergewicht (Stuttgart)‚ Lensky Eugene Onegin (Lyon and Toronto)‚ Ferrando (Vancouver)‚ Cassio and Telemacus Il Ritorno d’Ulysse in Patria (Lisbon)‚ Achilles King Priam and Painter Lulu (Antwerp)‚ Basilio and Spoletta Tosca (Netherlands Opera).
John Graham Hall has worked with many distinguished conductors including Haitink‚ Harnoncourt‚ Boulez‚ Andrew Davis‚ Tate‚ Rattle‚ Gardiner and Abbado. His concert career has taken him all over Europe‚ working with all the major British orchestras and appearing frequently at the Barbican and the South Bank. Recent concert engagements have included Messiah in Minnesota‚ Henze’s Kammermusik 1958 at the Purcell Room and Stuttgart‚ under Markus Stenz‚ Winterreise at St. John’s Smith Square with Malcolm Martineau‚ War Requiem in Gothenburg Cathedral‚ Honneger’s Joan of Arc at the Stake at the 1997 BBC Proms with the RLPO under Libor Pesek‚ Peter Grimes in Lisbon and Vaughan Williams’ Sir John in Love at the Barbican‚ both with Richard Hickox and Paris in King Priam with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the Royal Festival Hall.. Recordings include Carmina Burana‚ Lloyd Webber songs‚ The Coronation of Poppea‚ Midsummer Night’s Dream and most recently the roles of Bob Boles and the Idiot Wozzeck for Opera London (Chandos).
Other appearances have included Bob Boles (Salzburg Festival‚ Berlin Philharmonic‚ Glyndebourne and Netherlands Opera)‚ Tikhon Katya Kabanova (Lyon)‚ Basilio (La Monnaie and Glyndebourne)‚ Mayor Albert Herring‚ Elcius Croesus and Dr Caius (Opera North)‚ Tanzmeister Aridane auf Naxos and Monostatos at the Royal Opera House‚ the title role in Pascal Dusapin’s new opera Perela‚ L’homme de Fumée at the Bastille‚ Paris and in Montpellier and Dada in the premiere of Nyman’s Man and Boy with Almeida Opera. He was until recently a member of the English National Opera where roles include Mime Ring Cycle‚ Herod Salome‚ Valzacchi‚ Sylvester The Silver Tassie‚ Goro Madam Butterfly‚ Triquet Eugene Onegin‚ Monostatos Die Zauberflöte‚ Shabby Peasant Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk‚ Mime Das Rheingold and Alwa Lulu.
As one of our leading international singers his operatic engagements abroad have included the Dancing Master Ariadne auf Naxos‚ Cassio and Basilio (La Monnaie in Brussels)‚ two roles in Moses & Aaron (Netherlands Opera‚ Salzburg Festival and recorded for Deutsche Grammophon). He sang Shapkin From the House of the Dead (Nice Opera)‚ Lysander (Paris‚ Lyon‚ Caen‚ Montpellier‚ Rome‚ Ravenna Festival Krenik’s Der Diktatur and Schwergewicht (Stuttgart)‚ Lensky Eugene Onegin (Lyon and Toronto)‚ Ferrando (Vancouver)‚ Cassio and Telemacus Il Ritorno d’Ulysse in Patria (Lisbon)‚ Achilles King Priam and Painter Lulu (Antwerp)‚ Basilio and Spoletta Tosca (Netherlands Opera).
John Graham Hall has worked with many distinguished conductors including Haitink‚ Harnoncourt‚ Boulez‚ Andrew Davis‚ Tate‚ Rattle‚ Gardiner and Abbado. His concert career has taken him all over Europe‚ working with all the major British orchestras and appearing frequently at the Barbican and the South Bank. Recent concert engagements have included Messiah in Minnesota‚ Henze’s Kammermusik 1958 at the Purcell Room and Stuttgart‚ under Markus Stenz‚ Winterreise at St. John’s Smith Square with Malcolm Martineau‚ War Requiem in Gothenburg Cathedral‚ Honneger’s Joan of Arc at the Stake at the 1997 BBC Proms with the RLPO under Libor Pesek‚ Peter Grimes in Lisbon and Vaughan Williams’ Sir John in Love at the Barbican‚ both with Richard Hickox and Paris in King Priam with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the Royal Festival Hall.. Recordings include Carmina Burana‚ Lloyd Webber songs‚ The Coronation of Poppea‚ Midsummer Night’s Dream and most recently the roles of Bob Boles and the Idiot Wozzeck for Opera London (Chandos).
Other appearances have included Bob Boles (Salzburg Festival‚ Berlin Philharmonic‚ Glyndebourne and Netherlands Opera)‚ Tikhon Katya Kabanova (Lyon)‚ Basilio (La Monnaie and Glyndebourne)‚ Mayor Albert Herring‚ Elcius Croesus and Dr Caius (Opera North)‚ Tanzmeister Aridane auf Naxos and Monostatos at the Royal Opera House‚ the title role in Pascal Dusapin’s new opera Perela‚ L’homme de Fumée at the Bastille‚ Paris and in Montpellier and Dada in the premiere of Nyman’s Man and Boy with Almeida Opera. He was until recently a member of the English National Opera where roles include Mime Ring Cycle‚ Herod Salome‚ Valzacchi‚ Sylvester The Silver Tassie‚ Goro Madam Butterfly‚ Triquet Eugene Onegin‚ Monostatos Die Zauberflöte‚ Shabby Peasant Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk‚ Mime Das Rheingold and Alwa Lulu.
