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SASRA Music and Arts in Egremont

Welcome to SASRA Music & Arts 2009-2010

SASRA Music & Arts have been promoting classical music concerts since the early 1950's, the programme of concerts we have arranged for the 2009-2010 Season will be our 56th consecutive year.

This Season’s Remaining Concerts

January 8 2010 - Diana Galvydyte (violin), Jakob Fichert (piano) Violin sonatas by Beethoven and others
February 5 2010 - Bella Tromba – Trumpet Quartet Britten, Telemann, Mendelssohn and Gershwin
March 5 2010 - The Stanford String Quartet: Mozart, Janacek and Borodin string quartets

Please see Season's Brochure for more details.

NOTE: Demand for tickets this season is expected to be large, so to book in advance please write to:

Jim Hewitson
1 Cliff Villas
Parton
Whitehaven, CA28 6NU

Enclosing a cheque payable to SASRA Music & Arts. If you would like to receive the tickets by post, please enclose an SAE otherwise tickets will be available at the theatre door. Tickets for all concerts are £12, £1 for students and accompanied children admitted free.

All concerts on Fridays at 8pm in Egremont. Venue: All except November 13 concert will be held at The Theatre of West Lakes Academy, Egremont. The Armonico Vocal Ensemble Recital will be held at Egremont Parish Church.
For details please ring 019467 28724 or 01946 692178.

Reviews

The classical vocal ensemble Armonico Consort gave a concert on Friday 13 November in Egremont Parish Church as part of the SASRA Music & Arts 56th Season 2009-2010. A review:

Friday 13th, But we were lucky to hear this group

Members of The Armonico Consort: six singers, three instrumentalists and Director Chris Monks gave what many will regard Members of Armonico consort singing in Egremont as the finest display of choral singing they have ever heard in West Cumbria.

Their recital in Egremont Parish Church was the third in the SASRA Music & Arts classical music season and was a mini-ABC of 17th century sacred choral music: 'A for Allegri, B for Buxtehude and C for Carissimi'.

Allegri's setting of Psalm 51, the 'Miserere' was the best known piece and the soaring top C's of the soprano Anna Sandstrom were thrilling in the church's excellent acoustic.

Buxtehude was a fine composer who inspired both Bach and Handel. His profound musical meditation on the body of the crucified Christ: 'Membra Jesu Nostri' is a series of choruses and solo arias, in which all of the singers have prominent parts.

The Old Testament story from The Book of Judges is the subject of Carissimi's dramatic oratorio 'Jephtha'. The tenor Tim Down took the title role. The music covers all emotions from the jubilation of victory in battle to lamentation and tears as Jeptha's daughter prepares for human sacrifice. Anna Sandstrom was outstanding as the daughter. Throughout this memorable concert all the singers, as well as Tim and Anna: Matthew Reeve (alto) Liz Edwards (soprano) and basses Rueben Thomas and Peter Mitchell, were effortless in their performance of this complex and beautiful music, without microphones.

The final part of Jeptha is the deeply moving chorus: 'Plorate, filii Israel' (Weep, ye children of Israel). It's strange, but true, in the poet Shelley's words: 'Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought'.

Workshop Description:

In addition to the concert, SASRA Music & Arts had arranged for Armonico to give a singing workshop on the previous date Singing workshop at Orgill School Egremont at Orgill School, Egremont. This was much enjoyed by the Years 5 and 6 pupils who took part and they really responded to the leaders' enthusiasm. In a short space of time the children had mastered four new songs, having previously learned the necessity of breathing in singing and the importance of the diaphragm.

Then the rest of the school and the teaching staff came for a short concert which included some of the songs. During the day the Ensemble performed two beautiful 16th Century pieces, one by Thomas Tallis and the famous 'Silver Swan' by Orlando Gibbons. The Armonico Director, Chris Monks, was clearly very impressed by the children and complimented Orgill on keeping the tradition of music and singing alive at a time when many schools make no provision for this.

Armonico runs many of these events and 10,000 children take part in their workshops and singing days each year. They are about to form their third Academy Children's Choir. See Armonico's website.

Weddings a speciality...By Keith Bradshaw

So announced the advert for a local florist in the programme for the SASRA Music and Arts concert at West Lakes Academy on Friday 25 September 2009. So it was hardly a surprise when the first piece turned out to be the overture to 'The Marriage of Figaro.'

It's difficult to imagine a more joyful opening to a concert than this Mozart overture in the arrangement for oboe, bassoon, horn, flute and clarinet as played crisply by The Galliard Wind Quintet. The Quintet well justified their many enthusiastic reviews.

And what a superb start it was to the 2009-10 classical music season of the newly named 'SASRA Music at the Academy.' The concert series has returned to its former 'home': the theatre of West Lakes Academy - formerly Wyndham School - where it had spent 40 of its 55 seasons to date. Janet Simpson, Acting Head, welcomed the largest audience for several years, saying how appropriate it was that Sam Haywood, a pupil in the 1980s, and now a pianist with an international reputation, should be performing in this opening concert. She looked forward to developing the partnership between the Academy and SASRA Music and Arts.

Sam joined the Galliards for the second item: Mozart's Quintet for piano and winds. From beginning to end, it is a masterpiece of sheer delight. Don't just take my word for it: as Mozart himself wrote to his father in 1784, "I myself consider it to be the best work I have ever composed."

The next item 'L'heure de Berger' for piano and wind quintet by Jean Francaix is nothing to do with shepherds, but is actually three sketches of characters noticed in a Parisian cafe. It was quite a contrast to the Mozart pieces, but the players had moved effortlessly to this completely different style, and the chattering of the 'nervous children' in the final movement, completed by a glissando from Sam, brought the first half to a scintillating end. The audience then chattered in the refectory to the accompaniment of coffee, tea and cakes provided by the young people of Copeland - Rungwe (Tanzania) Link Support Group.

Sam then delighted many of his admirers with two contrasting piano solos by Chopin: the Scherzo in B minor and a Nocturne, Op 27 No 4. A memorable evening was concluded (almost) with the entire cast playing The Sextet by Poulenc. This piece had, as Katherine Spencer said in her introduction, a wide range of moods, from quirky and quick to sorrowful and slow, and the end was a beautiful chorale-type passage which was very moving.

And finally, we were treated to a repeat of Francaix's 'Nervous Children' as an encore - it is a wonder they had any energy left to play it!

The next SASRA Music and Arts event at West Lakes Academy is the annual 'Orchestras Live' Concert given by The Manchester Camerata as part of the 2009-2010 Cumbria Concert Series. It is on Friday 16 October at 8pm. Amongst other music, there will be a symphony by Haydn, 'Winter' from The Four Seasons by Vivaldi and Bacj's Concerto for two violins.

Our concerts in January and February 2009 were by Chetham's Music School pupils and The Navarro String Quartet. Read the reviews of these two recitals:

Superb Music Experience in Egremont - But where were the children?

There must be very many children in the Egremont area who learn musical instruments. One or two of them came to a wonderful concert recently in St. Mary’s Church Hall organised by the SASRA Music and Arts Group. Those who stayed away missed a great musical experience (free of charge) which would surely have inspired them to practise. Why don’t more parents give their musical children such opportunities?

The concert was given by the enormously talented Navarra String Quartet. The centre-piece of their programme was a quartet by Mendelssohn, who (incredibly) was himself only a teenager when he wrote it. You wouldn’t think so to listen to it, since the music seems so mature and deeply-felt you would think it must be the product of a lifetime’s experience. The Navarra players brought to their performance sensitivity, passion and deep conviction, and they had the audience enthralled throughout.

After interval refreshments (great cakes) the same conviction was on display in a performance of a quartet by Shostakovich. At times astringent and wild, at times lyrical and tender, at times whimsical and playful – whatever the mood of the music, these players were equal to it. Their ensemble-playing was immaculate without ever being contrived, and their commitment to the music conveyed itself to the audience through every change of mood.

For this particular reviewer (a devotee of Haydn quartets), the performance of the “joke” quartet which opened the programme was less convincing. It was almost as though the Navarra players hadn’t quite “warmed up” yet. The slow movement was perhaps a little too slow to carry listeners along with it. And it must be said (indeed it was said by some members of the audience) that the exaggerated gestures of the second violinist were an unwelcome distraction from time to time.

But these are small niggles. Overall, this was a splendid evening – the sort of evening you would have to pay a lot of money for if you went to the Wigmore Hall in London. But here we were in Egremont enjoying exactly the same professionalism and musicianship as we would in more prestigious venues, and at a fraction of the cost! These concerts deserve to be even better supported. And let’s hope a few more parents will bring their musical children to them in future. Tickets for accompanied children are free.

The final concert in the SASRA Music and Arts season will be given by a piano/viola/cello trio on 20 March.

David Killick

A Rare Type of Bumblebee

SASRA Music & Arts was privileged to welcome four young musicians from Chetham’s School in Manchester, on Friday 16 January. Chetham’s is the largest specialist music school in the north of England and has 290 students, aged 8-18.

Each student has to perform as a soloist in a series of ‘Platform’ concerts and the four young people who played in Egremont Parish Hall were quite outstanding. They amazed and gave tremendous pleasure to the large audience and would have greatly encouraged anyone concerned for the future of classical music.

Making her very first appearance as a violin soloist, 14-year old Emma Purslow played ‘From my Homeland’ by Smetana with great assurance. The second movement, as she said in her introduction, was more virtuosic (if that is a real word) than the first, and she was right! The first movement, it seemed to me as a mere listener, was extremely difficult, but the second was bordering on the impossible!

Brahms, late in his career, wrote two clarinet sonatas, which were later transcribed, by Brahms himself, for the viola. The F minor Sonata was the opening work in the concert and was sensitively played by Matthew Maguire on the viola. This is a subdued and melodious piece, and we were just beginning to relax, when along came Jason Evans who powered his way through the most exciting item in this extremely well balanced and varied programme: Aruntunian’s Trumpet Concerto. Fast and technically demanding passages dominated this piece which, Jason told us, it is now established as a ‘rock of the trumpet repertoire’. But I was especially impressed with the lovely slower movement played with the instrument muted.

Finally it was the turn of Jonathan Radford who is in The Upper Sixth. He proved, by superb performances of two substantial pieces, that the saxophone has every right to be considered as a mature classical instrument. The next time you go to a Quiz Night, and you are asked ‘in which piece of music is a rare type of bumble bee represented?’ you will be able to answer straight away: the fifth movement of ‘Tableaux de Provence’, by Paule Maurice. And what a bumble bee it was! Those in my garden are quite content to drone slowly from flower to flower, but his one was positively supersonic – it’s a good job it was rare! There were four other ‘scenes’ in this standard classic for alto saxophone.

Then I think we were all quite sad when we came to the ‘Sonata for Saxophone and Piano’ by Paul Creston, not because it was sad music, far from it, but because it was the last piece in the concert.

Many thanks to all four soloists for bringing us so much pleasure, we will remember their concert for a long time, and wish them well in their studies and future careers. They have shown us that, unlike Paule Maurice’s bumble bee, top quality classical musicians are not becoming an endangered species.

We hope they will remember us too, simple music lovers in West Cumbria, and perhaps in years to come, when they appear in some great concert venue in front of thousands, they might recall that it was performing in the humble Egremont Parish Church Hall in January 2009 that set them on their way to fame!

And we shouldn’t forget their teacher, Martyn Parkes, who drove the minibus, played all the piano accompaniments and generally marshalled the troops, not simultaneously of course, but very effectively.

Violins and a viola also feature in the next concert in the series. On 13 February The Navarra String Quartet play quartets by Haydn, Mendelssohn and Shostakovich. 8pm Egremont Parish Church Hall.

Keith Bradshaw

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