the banks of green willow |
The idea of this concert series came in the build up to the First World War centenary in 2014 - an event of worldwide significance and commemoration that has quite rightly received a lot of attention within the arts. My project explores the work of composers whose lives were tragically cut short or irreversibly altered due to their wartime experience, shining a light on the work of promising composers never given the chance to fulfil their potential. I have performed works by Ivor Gurney, Ernest Farrar and Cecil Coles, alongside more established composers such as Elgar, Ravel, Bridge and Parry.
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The project started as a trio of concerts for the Red Cross in Bristol, Gloucester and Exeter but has expanded somewhat since then, and I now give regular performances of this repertoire for music societies across the country. On the anniversary of Gallipoli I gave a concert at Southwark Cathedral featuring the unfinished sonata of Frederick Septimus Kelly: an Australian-British composer who died on the Somme, and more recently I have expanded my programmes to include a range of works from early 20th Century Britain, creating a diverse musical picture of the time.
Recent performances for HHH concerts (Haslemere) and Seaton Music were followed by concerts in Doncaster and Bude, and I will conclude the project with a CD recording of some previously unrecorded works by FS Kelly.
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An article from the British Music Society Journal featuring my performance of F.S.Kelly's piano sonata.
Click this link to read a review of my concert in Seaton (Dec 2017)
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The following is a recording of 'a drawing-down of blinds' by James Whittle, commissioned for the project. It is inspired by the work of the wartime poets Wilfred Owen, Geoff Dyer, Henri Philippe Pétain and Dyer.