Lake District Summer Music celebrates great British composers (From The Westmorland Gazette)
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Lake District Summer Music celebrates great British composers
5:00pm Tuesday 17th July 2012 in Music
By Adrian Mullen, Arts correspondent
Conductor Ian Jones (pictured on right) during one of the Hiawatha workshops
ONE of the UK’s biggest and best classical musical festivals starts next week - and its staged in our region.
Lake District Summer Music runs from Saturday, July 28 until August 12, this year celebrating great British composers through the centuries.
The Gould Piano Trio, Aurora Ensemble, Manchester Camerata, the Skampa Quartet, the ‘vocal kaleidoscope' of I Fagiolini, organist Jonathan Scott; cellist, Christoph Richter; violist, Yuko Inoue, and pianist, Carole Presland, are among the top performers in the terrific 2012 line-up.
The Chilingirian Quartet also performs on July 30 at Ambleside Parish Church, and on Saturday, August 4, at Lakes Hall, Troutbeck Bridge, and another must-see performance will be from emerging jazz player Amy Roberts, who shares the Kendal Town Hall stage with world-renowned reed player John Hall and a swinging rhythm section on Thursday, August 2 (8pm).
Both Blackwell Arts and Crafts House, Bowness, and Fellini's cinema and restaurant in Ambleside, host events.
In total, 48 performances and related events under the roof of more than 20 venues across the area.
Opening the fantastic fortnight is Hiawatha: the Complete Trilogy at Ulverston’s Coronation Hall on July 28 (7.15pm).
Once, apparently, the most popular choral work in England after the Messiah, Coleridge-Taylor’s trilogy of cantatas was performed in 1901 at the Mary Wakefield Festival conducted by the composer, and reflects the joys and pains of the Native Americans.
Conducting proceedings at the Coro will be highly respected Cumbrian chorus master, Ian Jones.
He said the story of the piece and the involvement of CCI’s New Millennium Chorus was quite fascinating: “First of all, at CCI (Cumbria Choral Society) we were looking for something for 2012 when two ideas came together simultaneously: to commemorate Samuel Coleridge Taylor, a neglected English composer, the centenary of whose sadly early death falls this year, and to see if there was any scope for collaborating with LDSM.
“The solution to the first idea was easy. The Hiawatha trilogy is rarely performed these days apart from ‘Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast’ which is part one, so that seemed a very attractive idea. As for LDSM, having lost its Arts Council funding they were only too ready to consider a joint project and they liked the idea of opening the festival with a choral piece.
“Also, I’m pleased to say, they were aware of CCI’s credentials and so agreed.
"After that we, at CCI, wanted to see what other possibilities there might be and discovered that coincidentally a Native American family were in the Furness area and had already done some very successful primary school visits so it was the work of a couple of telephone calls to secure them for workshops and presentations.
“Rehearsals have been hugely enjoyable and everyone is astonished that such attractive and utterly singable music is so neglected.”
One fascinating fact is that the father of well-known local organist, composer and conductor, Adrian Self, Geoffrey, wrote Coleridge Taylor’s biography. Adrian and Pam will be singing in the chorus.
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