BWH Echoes of a Mountain Song

Echoes of a Mountain Song The music & poetry of northern landscapes Saturday 6 February - Sunday 24 April 2016

Box Office: 0161 907 9000 www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk

Echoes of a Mountain Song The music & poetry of northern landscapes Even from the busy streets of Manchester, we can glimpse the brooding hills of the Peak and Pennines which creep into the fringes of the city’s sprawl. In the past, the Pennines and their fast flowing rivers made the Industrial Revolution possible, their animals fed and clothed us. Now, in an age of globalisation, such wilderness is a place of recreation and respite, reminding us of our roots and offering an escape from the 24/7 hi-tech contemporary urban lifestyle.

From February to April 2016, Echoes of a Mountain Song presents a series of concerts, poetry events, workshops and lectures, exploring how the northern landscape has inspired and nurtured a distinctive creativity in its people. It will present music and literature associated with and shaped by these beautiful places, revealing a rich living heritage which challenges the values and assumptions of our modern world.

Saturday 6 February 7.30pm Auditorium

Manchester Camerata

Jennifer Pike

Gábor Takács-Nagy conductor Jennifer Pike violin Will Ash narrator

Saturday 6 February 3.30-5.00pm Barbirolli Room

Echoes of a Mountain Song Introductory Lecture Em Marshall-Luck, author of Music in the Landscape and founder of the English Music Festival introduces the series, exploring how the northern uplands have inspired and influenced many of our country’s finest composers. £5

Book Tickets

Patrick Hadley Kinder Scout 7’ Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending 14’ Delius A Walk to The Paradise Garden 11’ Mendelssohn Symphony No.3 – ‘The Scottish’ 40’

In a concert which includes poetry and readings, we hear the rarely performed orchestral sketch Kinder Scout by English composer Patrick Hadley (1899-1973) who found solace on the moors of the Peak District. A performer with local roots, Jennifer Pike, plays that matchless evocation of the moorland landscape, The Lark Ascending, based on George Meredith’s pastoral poem. Frederick Delius was born in Bradford and loved high wild places. A Walk to The Paradise Garden is a blissful interlude set amidst Alpine scenery. After the interval, Mendelssohn takes us on a tour of Scotland; a musical journey encompassing misty peaks, bagpipes and highland dancing.

Preview 6.30pm Em Marshall-Luck talks to Peter Davison about the evening’s programme.

Foyer Folkslot Callum Armstrong plays the Scottish small-pipes in the Stalls Bar at 6.45-7.15pm, during the interval and after the main concert until 10.00pm. £40 | £33 | £27 | £22 | £14 (incl £2 fee) Book Tickets

Thursday 10 March 1.10pm Auditorium

Manchester Mid-day Concerts Society

RNCM Brass Band Nicholas Childs conductor

Sir Mark Elder

Holst Moorside Suite Philip Wilby Five Rivers – A Pastorale Symphony Arthur Butterworth Three Impressions John McCabe Cloudcatcher Fells The Brass Band is synonymous with the culture of the Pennines. Moorland and mountain landscapes have inspired many works for these iconic ensembles. John McCabe’s Cloudcatcher Fells depicts the Lake District, while Pennine composer Arthur Butterworth captures three scenes from 19th century Northumberland in his atmospheric suite.

The concert includes a new work by Philip Wilby exploring the five great rivers of the Yorkshire Dales – the Swale, Ure, Nidd, Wharfe and Aire.

The Hallé & The Hallé Choir Sir Mark Elder conductor Stravinsky Four Norwegian Moods Delius The Song of the High Hills Rachmaninov Three Russian Songs Tchaikovsky Francesca da Rimini

12’ 28’ 15’ 25’

Bradford-born Frederick Delius sought a mystical relationship with nature and, in this concert, The Song of the High Hills receives a rare performance. Delius described the piece as an attempt to ‘express the joy and rapture felt in the High Mountains and to depict the lonely melancholy of the highest altitudes of the wide expanses.’ £41 | £35 | £30 | £25.50 | £20 | £13 (incl £2 fee) Hallé concessions apply Book Tickets

£11.50 | £9.50 concession | £7 student (incl £2 fee) Book Tickets

RNCM Brass Band

Saturday 27 February 7.30pm Auditorium

Thursday 10 March 3.00pm Barbirolli Room

Wednesday 30 March 7.30pm Auditorium

Singing the Mountain Song Folk workshop and lecture

Sir Thomas Allen baritone Joseph Middleton piano

Cumbria-based folk-singer, musician and animateur, Bill Lloyd, explores the traditional culture and music of the north country in a mix of live performance, lucid commentary and instruction. Music includes the songs The Queen among the Heather, Bentham Fair and Gathering Rushes, as well as the tunes Through the Glen, Flintergill and The Old Drove Road. Volunteers from the audience may join in parts of the presentation.

Vaughan Williams Songs of Travel, Tired, Linden Lea George Butterworth Six songs from ‘A Shropshire Lad’ Traditional songs Gan ti the Kye, O I hae seen the roses blaw, Rap er te bank, Elsie Marley, Dance ti the Daddy Songs by Edward Purcell, Arthur Penn and Eric Coates

£5

Sir Thomas Allen is one of the most admired singers of our times. Born in Seaham, County Durham, some consider him a possible model for Lee Hall’s Billy Elliot, retaining a strong connection with the northeast. He performs Vaughan Williams’ sublime account of the outdoor life, Songs of Travel and Butterworth’s touching settings of A.E. Houseman, alongside items from Allen’s CD anthology Songs my father taught me.

He comments ‘there’s no academia behind this, just my very simple need to recapture memories I have of amateur singers coming through our house to practice these songs and others.’

Sir Thomas Allen

Book Tickets

Foyer Folkslot Live folk music from Northumbria and the Borders in the Stalls Bar performed by Morag Brown (fiddle) and Lewis Powell-Reid (accordion) at 6.45-7.15pm, during the interval and after the main concert until 10.00pm. £27 | £22 |£17 (incl £2 fee)

Book Tickets

Echoes of a Mountain Song culminates in a weekend of events exploring the creative freedom found in northern landscapes. It also marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare on 23 April, who is rumoured to have spent a period of ‘lost years’ serving wealthy Catholic families in Lancashire. That provides the ideal excuse to open the weekend with a celebration of northern poetry, written by two living Pennine poets and one of the first literary figures to hail from those hills, Emily Brontë. The series reaches its climax with a specially commissioned community opera, Get Weaving, marking the infamous mass trespass on Kinder Scout in 1932; an event which proved a turning-point in the campaign for the right to roam.

Simon Armitage

Friday 22 – Sunday 24 April

Saturday 23 April 11.00-12.30pm Barbirolli Room

Shakespeare 400 Northern Bards Josephine Dickinson, Alison Prince & Bill Lloyd

Friday 22 April 12.30pm Manchester Central Library

An Introduction to Get Weaving Children’s author Alison Prince and composer Andrew Keeling discuss their new community opera, Get Weaving, exploring its main concerns – freedom of imagination, preserving the spontaneity of childhood and resisting the forces of conformity which rob us of creativity and individuality.

Free event

Award-winning poet and shepherd, Josephine Dickinson, has written movingly of her transformative experiences on a hill farm near Alston. Overcoming profound deafness and drug-addiction, her attachment to landscape is both healing and revelatory. She is joined by children’s author and poet, Alison Prince who lives on the Isle of Arran and has written the libretto for the series’ community opera, Get Weaving. Actor and folk singer, Bill Lloyd also reads from Simon Armitage’s Walking Home, recording his journey along The Pennine Way and a section of Basil Bunting’s poetic masterpiece Briggflats inspired by the landscape near Sedbergh. £8 incl tea and coffee in the Barbriolli Room Book Tickets

Saturday 23 April 1.00-2.00pm Stalls Foyer

Pop-up poetry reading

Saturday 23 April 3.00-5.00pm Barbirolli Room

Unquiet Earth Words & music about the life & work of Emily Brontë

Read your favourite poem or a poem of your own inspired by the landscape. For the chance to participate, submit your ideas to popuppoetry@bridgewater-hall.co.uk, and a selection will be heard on the day.

Clare Hammond piano Jane Wilkinson soprano Suzanne Casey violin Kenneth Woods cello Peter Davison narrator

Clare Hammond

Free event

Beethoven Pathétique Sonata 15’ Robin Walker Four Songs of Emily Brontë 16’ Beethoven Cantata: Adelaide 6’ Mendelssohn Adagio from Cello Sonata No.2

4’ Andrew Keeling Piano Trio ‘Unquiet Earth’ 20’ Despite her short life, Emily Brontë produced one of the most original novels of the 19th century, Wuthering Heights. In a sequence of words and music, we discover more about this enigmatic free spirit who loved the Yorkshire moors. Todmorden -based composer Robin Walker has set four of her poems, exploring lost love and resignation. Extracts from the novel and other writings appear alongside a stormy piano sonata by Beethoven, whose cantata about unobtainable love, Adelaide, was among the Brontës’ music collection in Haworth.

Finally, Lancashire-based Andrew Keeling’s piano trio Unquiet Earth responds to Wuthering Heights’ ambivalent last paragraphs in music of rare pathos.

Kenneth Woods

£8

Book Tickets

Foyer Folkslot 5.00-6.00pm Live folk music in the Stalls Bar from the Pennines and Cumbria performed by Bill Lloyd (whistle/ vocals) and Celia Briar (harp), exploring its diverse influences from all corners of the region and beyond, especially Ireland.

Saturday 23 April 7.30pm

BBC Philharmonic Shakespeare 400 Andrew Gourlay conductor Five newly commissioned works by Tom Coult, Nina Whiteman, Daniel Kidane, Aaron Parker, Chiu-yu Chou Prokofiev Suite from Romeo and Juliet The BBC Philharmonic celebrates Shakespeare 400 with a concert of music inspired by the great bard. Five young Manchester-trained composers have been asked to write an eight-minute work based on a specific Shakespeare sonnet. Each piece will be used as the incidental music to a new radio play, but will also stand-alone as an orchestral work. The concert ends with extracts from Prokofiev’s colourful ballet score depicting the tragic destiny of the ‘star-crossed’ lovers from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Preview 6.30pm Michael Symmons Roberts hosts a debate on the place of music in the work of Shakespeare. £38 | £32 | £26 | £21 | £16 | £12 Book Tickets (incl £2 fee) BBC Philharmonic concessions apply

Sunday 24 April Echoes of a Mountain Song reaches its climax in a day of activities and performances to mark the anniversary of the mass trespass on Kinder Scout. On 24 April 1932, a group of activists set out from Hayfield to walk to the summit plateau.

Singing defiantly as they went, there were fist-fights with local gamekeepers. The ramblers made their point but, on their return, several were arrested, some receiving jail sentences. The trespass was a significant milestone in the campaign for the right to roam, resulting in legislation in 2000, which gave the public access to vast new areas of private land. The mass trespass provides a perfect metaphor for the universal human need to liberate our imaginations and discover inspiration in wild upland places.

Sunday 24 April from 2pm

3.15-4.00pm

The Bridgewater Folkfest & Country Fayre

Fosbrooks

Join us for an afternoon of traditional North Country culture with lots of free live music, food stalls, fun and games.

4.15-5.00pm

2.15-3.00pm

Bill Lloyd border pipes/vocals Carolyn Francis fiddle The duo performs poetry and traditional music from Cumbria and the Pennines, including extracts from Ted Hughes’ Remains of Elmet, Basil Bunting’s epic Briggflatts and Westmorland dialect readings.

Young musicians from the Stockport-based group perform folk music and clog-dances from the Peak and Pennines.

Lakeland Fiddlers Led by Carolyn Francis and formed in 2000, the ensemble has evolved from an educational workshop to an enthusiastic community band playing North Country music with authenticity and real style.

5.15-5.45pm

‘The Manchester Rambler’ community singing Bill Lloyd leads everyone in a rendition of Ewan MacColl’s famous anthem inspired by the mass trespass on Kinder Scout.

Sunday 24 April 6.00-7.00pm Auditorium

Get Weaving!

A community opera by Alison Prince and Andrew Keeling Michael Betteridge musical director Students from Chetham’s School of Music The Bridgewater Hall Singers Maghull Wind Orchestra Church of England School of the Resurrection Beswick, Manchester

In collaboration with Chetham’s School of Music and other community groups, we mark the anniversary of the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in 1932. The children’s author, Alison Prince (who created the Trumpton TV series) and Fylde-based composer, Andrew Keeling, explore our right to freedom of imagination in a musical story that raises important questions about how we live today. Get Weaving reveals how the spontaneity of childhood can be all too easily crushed by mindless greed and restrictive authority in a compelling contemporary take on the story of the mass trespass. Will the mysterious piper survive or will his mysterious melodies be silenced by fear and suspicion? In music that encompasses rock, tango and more besides, we are invited to ‘get weaving’ and to learn what binds us together and also to the natural world.

Post-concert 7.00-8.00pm Join us after the performance for a chance to meet the performers with live music provided by award-winning Manx folk trio Barrule. £5

Book Tickets

Booking Info Box Office opening hours* Monday to Saturday 10.00am – 6.00pm (8.00pm on concert nights) Sunday (concert nights only) 12.00 noon – 8.00pm. Closed on non-concert Sundays. * As at October 2015. Mastercard, Visa, Maestro and Delta all welcome.

A booking fee of £2 per ticket applies to telephone and online transactions where stated in listings.

Tickets bought in person at the Box Office using a debit card or credit card are subject to a 2% booking fee. No fee applies to tickets bought in person and paid for by cash or cheque, or to free ticketed events.

Box Office: 0161 907 9000

www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk

Getting to the Hall The Hall is in the centre of Manchester, easily accessible by public transport and by road.

The nearest car parks are Park Avenue, NCP Manchester Central, NCP Great Northern or NCP Oxford Street. You can book Park Avenue parking when you buy your concert tickets.

The Bridgewater Hall, Lower Mosley Street, Manchester M2 3WS

OLDHAM

NCP

NCP

NCP

PARK AVENUE

ASHTON UNDER LYNE

M61 BOLTON/WIGAN/M6 PRESTON M602 & M60/M62 LIVERPOOL SALFORD QUAYS & ECCLES

M66 BURY/M62 ROCHDALE, LEEDS

SALE & ALTRINCHAM

STOCKPORT & BUXTON M56 MANCHESTER AIRPORT & WILMSLOW M56 CHESTER/M6 BIRMINGHAM