If MUSICON Durham did a season ticket, I’d definitely be buying one this year. In his second year as Chair of the university’s professional concert series, James Weeks has put together such an exciting line-up of visiting artists that I want to go to every single concert.
Last year, James began his inaugural series with a cunning plan – a ‘come and sing’ day, which also served as a launch event for the season, so all those of us tempted by a day singing William Byrd came away with the season brochure – I’m sure it worked as I saw people from the workshop at subsequent concerts. This sort of event is very much part of James’s philosophy behind MUSICON, as he explains:
This year’s theme, or maybe guiding principle, is ‘creating connection’. I was really struck last year, which was my first year curating the series, by how meaningful these intimate, live musical events were for the people that attended them – how much of a thirst for this kind of experience there was across the city and university, and how many different constituencies of people could benefit from them.
Perhaps the experience of the pandemic has heightened this, and probably also the sense that we spend so much of our lives online, but getting up-close to world-class performers in a way that MUSICON allows, and to share that experience with others, resonated strongly with me, as a kind of antidote to the social atomisation that seems to increase year-on-year, and that it can feel impossible to prevent.
So this year I just want to build on what we did last year – growing audiences, bringing more and more people in to experience concerts and workshops: schoolchildren and teenagers, students, adults, anyone and everyone. We have an epidemic of loneliness across all age-groups, and initiatives like MUSICON, which is just a simple concert series really, can really be part of the fight against that.’
This year begins again with a come and sing and I’m hoping I’ll be able to catch up with some of last year’s participants, because what I particularly enjoyed last year was the way that James treated us as if we were an established choir, not a random collection of individuals, and most of the day was spent doing good, detailed work on the music. This year, we have the scrumptious sacred music of Henry Purcell to enjoy, which nicely leads into some of the autumn concerts.
The concerts proper begin with soprano Claire Ward returning to Durham with lutenist Kristiina Watt and cello/gamba player Miriam Nohl who together form The Portrait Players (pictured above). Their programme ‘Les Femmes Illustres – The Female Genius‘ brings to life the voices of women from the 17th century – French poets and the actors who portrayed Purcell’s female characters. I remember being really impressed with Claire when she was an undergraduate – she’s now enjoying a flourishing professional career so I’m looking forward to seeing what she’s doing now.
Gabriel Fauré is one of this year’s anniversary composers – he died in 1924 – and there have been plenty of performances of his Requiem around. There’s much more to Fauré than his greatest hit though so if you only know his choral music, I recommend the concert by star violinist Fenella Humphreys and pianist Martin Roscoe on 29 October. Their programme places Fauré’s music alongside pieces by his pupils Maurice Ravel, George Enescu and Lili Boulanger and his own teacher and life-long friend Camille Saint-Saëns, bringing us a flavour of the glittering world of fin-de-siècle Paris.
My personal highlight of the MUSICON series this year, and the concert that made me squeal with excitement when I saw the listings is ‘Music in a Cold Climate’ by the ensemble In Echo. I wrote about their album of the same title in a post of my favourite releases of 2018 (read it here) and I keep going back to it. The combination of the otherworldly tone of Gawain Glenton’s cornetto and the mellow sackbut is utterly beguiling and the opening notes of the album always send a bit of a shiver down my spine.
As well as playing music from the 16th and 17th centuries, In Echo also commission new works for their instruments so I’m hoping we may get a bit of that too – I’m always fascinated by hearing what modern composers do with instruments that we think of as being ‘old’ (being a recorder player, I have a vested interest here). Another musician commissioning new repertoire for an old instrument is Katarzyna Kowalik, whose harpsichord recital ‘Inventions: Music across time and borders’ on 20 November includes pieces specially written for the project by Lisa Robertson: Evangelia Rigaki and Janet Oates.
Durham University has long-standing links with Japan and this is reflected in an intriguing recital on 13 November, presented by Dr Amanda Hsieh, in which soprano Miku Yasukawa and pianist Yoshie Kawamura, perform Japanese art-song from the early 20th century. I had no idea that such music existed but I think this was the time that Japan was opening up to the West and enthusiastically absorbing new cultural influences, so it makes sense. The concert material says that these songs would have been performed alongside European works, so Yasukawa and Kawamura are adding in Italian songs and arias. I have no doubt that this concert will be a world away from the deeply troubling stereotypes of Japan that Puccini gives us in Madame Butterfly and probably a good deal more interesting.
Looking into the new year, MUSICON favourites EXAUDI are back on 28 January, with more of their dazzling, mind-bending virtuosity. They take us back to some of the strangest music of the Middle Ages, music that contains tricks and puzzles under a seemingly lyrical surface and can sometimes be hard to distinguish from the spectacular avant-garde pieces in which EXAUDI also excel. They’re also continuing their collaboration with St Leonard’s School and will again be performing pieces written for them by the A-level music class. Last year’s project produced some really accomplished work (here’s my review ) and I’m looking forward to hearing what this year’s group do.
MUSICON has always celebrated the most pioneering new music and this continues on 1–2 March with a weekend of concerts and workshops. Alongside concerts by some of the UK’s leading contemporary ensembles, there’s a composition workshop and, very excitingly, a chance for local singers to try experimental choral repertoire – this is certainly not your normal ‘come and sing’.
The season ends on 4 March when the gorgeous viol consort Fretwork and rising-star counter-tenor Alexander Chance move onto next year’s composer anniversaries to mark 400 years since the death of Orlando Gibbons. Those of us who sing in church will undoubtedly know Gibbons’s Evensong service and anthems (and we may have made jokes in rehearsal about Funky Gibbons) – this concert takes us to Gibbons’ secular consort music and madrigals and in keeping with MUSICON’s tendencies to mix old and new, the concert and indeed the season, builds to a dramatic close with ‘My Days’, a deeply moving response to Gibbons’ music by Nico Muhly.
One of the great things about MUSICON is that the tickets are so affordable – cheaper than most student concerts in fact. James explains:
‘We’re trying to reach out to schools, to bring them in to workshops, and also partner with venues and stakeholders across the community to make sure people know it’s happening and have no barriers to access. Ticket prices are as low as we can make them, and we have a scheme to help people who are struggling to afford the ticket prices as well. I truly believe this series is an incredible resource in a city like Durham, and I really hope people come and take advantage of it’.
I’ve already been on a ticket buying binge while writing this article – I hope you’ll join me!
