A busy weekend coming up at the beginning of July as we have just added a Rush Hour Concert on Saturday 5th July, the day before ‘The Return of the Basset Horns’ on the evening of the 6th.
Our Rush Hour concerts start at 6pm with a glass of wine followed by an hour of music focusing on new young performers and/or new or rarely performed compositions.
On July 5th Declan Hickey and his guitar and Ellen Wilkinson and her oboe will be playing 20th and 21st century music composed almost exclusively for the guitar and oboe – including one world premiere!
For more details and to book go here – £15 to include a glass (or several) of wine.
For more details about the wonderful basset horns and the 18th century supper on the 6th – go here
And then later in July – 27th to be exact – it will be the turn of the Fira Duo – Liz and Leora on the flute and the violin at our next Highgate Society Lunchtime concert.
Leora and Liz met on on a summer music course in Romania back in 2016 and have been making music together ever since. They will be playing their own arrangements of some of the classics but also popular modern tunes. Booking details to come very soon.
Meanwhile, back in May at King’s Place – Taiko…
Takuya Taniguchi was born in 1983 in Fukui (overlooking the Sea of Japan) and started to play Taiko aged 3. One of the leading solo Taiko players in the world, Takuya now lives in Germany and collaborates with a number of European orchestras. This however, was a solo performance – and a dramatic one as the drummers ritual ‘dance’ with the drums is very much part of playing Taiko. .
The term Taiko refers to any kind of drum; in Japan different drums are often played by ensembles, sometimes accompanied by voice, strings and woodwind. In feudal Japan Taiko were widely used in warfare and there is still a military flavour to their immensely complex rhythms. There was also a positively warlike ferocity in Takuya’s attacks on his drums – so impassioned that I felt almost sorry for them.
He used three sets of drums, a few gongs and long heavy drumsticks – and the speed, complexity, skill and energy of his playing was positively mind boggling. If you want to get a feel for it there are a couple of clips on YouTube: here in a concert performance, here in a spectacular ‘outdoor’ performance filmed on bridges, rocks and by the sea.
Flanders and Swann on 12th June
There are now literally only a couple of tickets left so if you want to join us – be quick! Book here.
For future happenings in at Hampstead Lane and elsewhere – see our Upcoming Events page.
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