7th November – Rush Hour concert with William Jack
Our first cello outing is with William Jack, a classically trained guitar-playing cellist-song writer from Australia. William is not only, as you can see, flexible in how he plays the cello but also in what he plays; one month at the Sydney Opera House or the Musikverein in Vienna – the next as Jazz cello soloist at an International Cello Festival or playing his own songs at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas.
He produced his first album, The Old Cello Box, in 2022 and has just recorded his second, The Old Cello Box Volume 2 which he premiered at Edinburgh and has been touring round Scotland and Ireland. 7th November is its London launch.
To hear some of William’s music for yourself go to his You Tube channel or his website.
To book for William’s Rush Hour concert – 6pm on November 7th – cost £15 for an hour’s music an a glass (or several) of wine – go here – or pay on the door.
27th November – Tobie Medland and Shirley Smart
And more lovely cello on 27th November – but this time accompanied by a violin and focusing on Zoltán Kodály’s Duo for Violin and Cello.
Kodály’s Duo was written in 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I and ‘the tensions of the time are quite apparent in the emotionally harrowing music – a perfect cross-pollination of Kodály’s passion for Hungarian folk music and the more formal structures of art music’.
In 1914 Kodály was at the height of his interest in Hungarian folk music. Over a 10-year period, starting in 1905, he and fellow Hungarian composer Béla Bartók had spent their summers touring Hungarian villages and recording thousands of songs (over 3,000 in total) on wax or jotting them down in notation as the villagers sang them. Records which would later form the basis for numerous scholarly writings on central European folk music.
(For more on Kodály and the Duo see short pieces by Willard Hertz, John Henken and Kai Christiansen – my thanks to them.)
After the drama of Kodály’s duo, Shirley and Tobie will give us some gentler jazz drawing on Shirley’s ten years in Jerusalem soaking up the musical culture of the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey. For more on Shirley, see her site here, for more on Tobie, see here.
To book for Shirley and Tobie – 6.30pm on November 27th – cost £30 for the concert, supper and wine – go here.
4th November – Madeleine at the St Pancras Clock Tower
Fans of Madeleine Mitchell and the London Chamber Ensemble will remember that last year we previewed the Ensemble’s upcoming recording of Charles Wood’s String Quartet no 6 and Herbet Howell’s Chosen Tune. So I am sure you will be delighted to hear that both pieces have now been recorded, that the disc is being launched on November 4th at the St Pancras Clock Tower – and that you can already pre-order your disc right here.
If you would like to go to the launch, do not delay – the tower can only accommodate an audience of 33 so gets booked out very quickly. You can book your tickets here.
And, if you don’t get to hear them live, you can catch them on In Tune (R 3) tonight between 5 and 6pm – or thereafter on BBC Sounds.
And also on 4th November… The Kyan Quartet
We hate to stretch your loyalties, but on the 4th November we also have the Kyan Quartet playing here at Hampstead Lane. A cast of international players, performing international repertoire – with an international supper to follow!
£30 to include supper and wine – book here.
For other future happenings in at Hampstead Lane and elsewhere – see our Upcoming Events page.
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