To buy tickets and check out the programme for July 13th go here.
Arthur Keegan, the fons et ergo of the Wessex songs project, contacted me some months ago to ask whether we might be interested in a Thomas Hardy related concert. They were looking to perform the songs prior to the recording that they had scheduled for the autumn with Delphian Records.
(Congratulations are due on this front as I have just seen on Arthur’s Instagram feed that they have not only reached their Kickstarter funding target for this project but the overshot it!)
Thomas Hardy songs sounded like a very different programme to anything that Salon Music had hosted before – so I said yes. I then had a listen to a few of their rehearsal tapes – and read more about the project and the people involved – and was very glad I had said yes.
Arthur Keegan – composer
To quote from Arthur’s website:
‘I am very surprised to be making a career as a composer. I come from a non-musical, working class background and went to my first ever classical concert when I was 16.’
Despite the discourgement of his friends and family who saw a career in classical music as not only weird but horribly financially risky, he persevered, initally via an electric guitar to, in due course, a PHD in music. Alongside composing he now teaches part-time at Middlesex University.
Arthur was also a late comer to Hardy’s poetry (‘boring’ was his school boy verdict). His conversion was brought about by hearing Lotte, a confirmed Hardy enthusiast, sing some of those poems. Fascinated, not only by the poems written after the death of Hardy’s wife, Emma but by the number of other composers they had inspired – Arthur set to work both to compose settings of his own and to work those of other great 20th century composers into a complete programme.
Lotte Betts-Dean
Lotte has always been a Hardy enthusiast and takes every opportunity to sing settings of his poetry.
A mezzo soprano hailing originally from Australia, Lotte has ecletic tastes and is equally at home in early music, vocal ensemble, opera, experimental music and non-classical collaborations. She is also interested in interdisciplinary projects which she both programmes and curates.
She is an Associate (ARAM) of the Royal Academy of Music.
See her website here for more.
James Girling
James graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music having been selected onto RNCM’s Accelerated Pathway as an eighteen-year-old. In 2021, he was conferred the honour of Associate Member of the RNCM after being judged to have achieved outstanding early career success.
He now divides his time between Oslo and the UK performing on classical and jazz guitar, in Afrobeat/Ethiojazz-inspired, avant-rock-fun-psych groups, soul, funk, disco and folk groups – accompanying voice – a cornerstone of the English musical tradition since the renaissance.
To get a flavour of the songs
check in to their Wessex Songs website where you can listen to some of their rehearsal tapes.
The programme for July 13th will include:
Arthur Keegan’s – Elegies for Emma
Gerald Finzi – Shortening Days and It Never Looks Like Summer
Benjamin Britten – At The Railway Station Upway
Songs by Imogen Holst, Ivor Gurney, Robin Milford, Betty Roe, Henry Handel (Ethel) Richardson
A new song by composer Kerry Andrews.
Supper
Our early Victorian supper for the Fanny Mendelssohn concert was such a success that we thought we would have an Edwardian supper to celebrate Thomas Hardy. Arnold Bennett omelette, Kedgeree and Devilled kidneys immediately spring to mind but there will, of course, also be veggy/vegan alternatives.
To buy tickets for July 13th go here.
6.30 doors open, 7pm concert, 8.30pm supper – hopefully in the garden. £28 to include buffet supper and wine.
Upcoming concert
Saturday 9th September – The Voice Trio – Lighter Patterns of Love
On 9th September we are going back to Highgate School Chapel for a recital by the lovely Voice Trio, Victoria, Clemmie and Emily, who gave us such a wonderful evening devoted to Hildbrand of Bingen eighteen months ago.
The concert will start at 7 with a short interval for a (free) glass of wine in the quadrangle.
Ticket cost- £20 to include a glass of wine.
You can book here.
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