Dancing in the Salon programme

The Tait Memorial Trust presents

Dancing in the Salon Presented by Ross Alley Leighton House Museum 12 Holland Park Road London, W14 8LZ April 11th 2018 at 7:00pm Tonight’s concert is generously supported by Chev alier Richard Gunter Principal Partner Principal Partner

Front cover artwork is from the Viola, Lady Tait JCW collection

A concert with Tait Trust awardees

CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE

We are so grateful to Ross Alley who, for the 5th year running, has presented our themed concerts in "The Salon" showcasing our talented awardees. It is the carrot to attract TMT’s supporters and their friends, this year he explores Dancing in the Salon.

Ross has generously given us his time and knowledge to put these concerts together, and we are honoured to have his support.

To date the Ross Alley ‘Salon’ series has included: 2014 - Wagner in the Salon 2015 - Shakespeare in the Salon 2016 - Seduction in the Salon 2017 - Passion in the Salon We are also indebted to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, who have been our Principal Partner for the past five years. Corporate support for sport is commonplace; sadly not for work such as ours, so all the more gratifying that CBA is behind us and for our wonderful performing talent from Australia & New Zealand.

I want to take this opportunity to wish my dear friend, Chevalier Richard Gunter a very happy 90th birthday. Once again he has personally sponsored the venue, this time the beautiful Leighton House Museum, and to our Friends, many individual sponsors and loyal supporters: we are so pleased to see your sponsorship growing year-on-year we can’t do without you!

Isla Baring OAM Chairman,

CONCERT PROGRAMME

Dancing in the Salon At Leighton House Event Sponsored by Chevalier Richard Gunter Wednesday 11th April 2018

Introduced by Ross Alley Principal Partner

Commonwealth Bank of Australia

ARTISTS Iona Allan, violin Courtenay Cleary, violin Samantha Crawford, soprano Andrey Lebedev, classical guitar Madeleine Randall, oboe Wilbur Whitta, jazz piano / composer Bronte Zemlic, mezzo soprano Artistic Director / Accompanist: Chad Vindin

Tonight’s flowers are provided courtesy of

CONCERT PROGRAMME Madeleine Randall, oboe Chad Vindin, pianist Georg Phillip Telemann

Oboe Sonata in A minor (Siciliana, Andante and Vivace)

Courtenay Cleary, violin Ross Edwards

“White Cockatoo Spirit Dance”

Courtenay Cleary, violin Chad Vindin, pianist Béla Bartók

Romanian Folk Dances (arr. by Zoltán Székely)

I Bot tánc / Jocul cu bâtă (Stick Dance) II Brâul (Sash Dance) III Topogó / Pe loc (In One Spot) IV Bucsumí tánc / Buciumeana (Dance from Bucsum) V Román polka / Poarga Românească (Romanian Polka) VI Aprózó / Mărunțel (Fast Dance) Bronte Zemlic, mezzo-soprano Chad Vindin, pianist Georges Bizet

“Habanera” from Carmen

Kurt Weill

“Youkali” (lyrics by Roger Fernay)

Duet: Bronte Zemlic & Andrey Lebedev Manuel de Falla

“Asturiana” from Siete Canciones Populares Espanolas

Andrey Lebedev, guitar Johann Sebastian Bach

Prelude from the Partita for Lute in E major BWV 1006a

Isaac Albéniz

Asturias

Interval

20 minutes

Iona Allan, violin Chad Vindin, pianist Johannes Brahms

Hungarian Dance No.1 (arr. by Joseph Joachim)

Benjamin Britten

Waltz from Suite for Violin and Piano, Op. 6

Wilbur Whitta, jazz piano Wilbur Whitta

“Mr. Potato Head” (own composition)

Samantha Crawford, soprano Chad Vindin, pianist Ivor Novello

“Waltz of my heart” from The Dancing Years (lyrics by Christopher Hassall)

Franz Lehár

“Meine Lippen Sie küssen so heiss” from the operetta Giuditta (lyrics by Paul Knepler & Fritz Löhner-Beda)

Richard Wagner

“Du bist der Lenz” from Die Walküre

PROGRAMME NOTES The great Russian-American choreographer George Balanchine once said “Dancing is music made visible” and, of course, it is the intoxicating power of musical rhythm that articulates both art-forms. Tonight‟s performance is not only a showcase for the Tait Memorial Trust‟s talented awardees but it is a themed programme to sweep you off your feet – literally – as the performers take the stage to inhabit the rhythms of the dance.

The word “music” is derived from Greek mythology‟s Nine Muses, those inspirational goddesses who embodied the arts and inspired creation with their graces through song, poetry and dance. Music was the domain of Euterpe, the Muse of lyric poetry and Terpsichore, the Muse of dance, for words inspire song and rhythm propels the dance. Sound and movement have always been inextricably linked in primal emotional tandem: witness primitive tribal rituals, a mother rocking a child as she croons a lullaby, or the universal combined actions of jumping and shouting in ecstasy, or keening and cowering in grief.

Folk song and folk dance, along with language, are an integral ingredient of the cultural identity of a people. As Western music developed into a sophisticated spectator art-form in salons and concert-halls, folk melodies and rhythms found new homes: the Baroque period suites and partitas are nothing more than a collection of highly stylized dance rhythms: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue, Minuet, Gavotte, Bourrée etc. The Prelude from Bach‟s Partita for Lute in E major, played tonight on the guitar, is not actually a dance unlike the movements that follow it, but its endless running semiquavers certainly make it quite a dexterous feat for dancing fingers!

“Folk song and folk dance, along with language, are an integral ingredient of the cultural identity of a people.”

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) is one of the most prolific composers in history: his all-encompassing oeuvre comprises more than 3,000 compositions, half of which have been lost. He was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the leading German composers of the time – compared favourably both to his friend Johann Sebastian Bach, who made Telemann the godfather and namesake of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, and to George Frideric Handel, whom Telemann also knew personally. As an oboist, Telemann composed more for the instrument than any of his contemporaries. The Sonata in A minor begins with a gentle, rocking “Siciliana” whose pastoral mood is continued in the limpid, swaying Andante while the fleet-footed finale brings the sonata to a livelier, toe-tapping conclusion.

Ross Edwards‟ White Cockatoo Spirit Dance for unaccompanied violin has all the characteristics of a maninya, one of Edwards‟ Australian dance chants – a form he evolved throughout the 1980s which has left a definitive stamp on his own and much other recent Australian music. Vibrant, captivating, life-affirming, and virtuosic, White Cockatoo Spirit Dance is a spontaneous melodic outpouring whose obsessive rhythms appear to have been ritualized from nature.

(Edwards claims to have been influenced particularly by the ecstatic and mysterious sound-tapestry of the insect chorus in the heat of the Australian summer).

“Dancing is music made visible” George Balanchine Bartók‟s Romanian Dances are based on seven dance tunes he collected in Transylvania and to which he added a harmonized accompaniment. The melodies of the second and third movements were collected from peasant pipers while the other tunes were notated down from village fiddlers. The original 1915 version of the work is for piano followed by an arrangement for orchestra in 1917. Tonight, you will hear the 1925 transcription for violin and piano

by Zoltán Székely, a friend of the composer who requested the composition of Bartók‟s Second Violin Concerto becoming its dedicatee as well as performer at its premiere in March, 1939. Transylvania held a particular fascination for Bartók and these haunting melodies evoke the sonorities of the original village instruments on which they were played: the fiddle, shepherd‟s flute and bagpipes.

A habanera is a sensuous, duple-timed dance from Cuba and Bizet thought he was transforming a folksong whose seductive, chromatically inflected melody he made famous in his opera Carmen. In fact, it was a cabaret song entitled “El Arreglito” by the Spanish Basque composer, Sebastián Yradier. When Bizet discovered his mistake, he added a note to the vocal score of the opera, acknowledging its source.

Kurt Weill‟s “Youkali”, originally known as Tango habanera, was composed as incidental music for the French musical play Marie Galante which he wrote with Jacques Deval. It was later adapted as a song with evocative and enigmatic text

by Roger Fernay in 1946.

PROGRAMME NOTES The region of Asturia in northwest Spain inspires the next two items in the programme although Albéniz‟s hypnotic “Asturiana” is described by his biographer Walter Aaron Clark as “pure Andalusian flamenco”. The theme suggests the rhythm of the bulería, a fast flamenco form. Although originally written for the piano (in imitation of the guitar), many have attributed the first transcription for guitar to Francisco Tárrega who put it in its most recognizable key, E minor. According to the guitarist and guitar scholar Stanley Yates, the first guitar transcription of the piece was probably by Severino García Fortea, although Andrés Segovia‟s transcription is the most famous and most influential. Tonight, our performer Andrey Lebedev adds his name to that illustrious list.

Manuel de Falla‟s “Asturiana”, based on a popular Asturian air, is a lament in which a green pine tree weeps in sympathy when seeing the protagonist of the song cry. Propelled by the tolling of a pedal point in the accompaniment, it is a dance of grief.

Both Brahms and Britten also succumbed to the irresistible allure of the dance. The forty-year friendship between Brahms and Joseph Joachim, violinist and composer, was one of the most significant and fruitful relationships in nineteenth-century music. Their admiration of each other‟s artistry was profound and unwavering, and bore sustained creative fruit on Brahms‟ side of which his Violin Concerto and Double Concerto are only the most famous examples. Joachim‟s transcriptions of Brahms‟s famous Hungarian Dances, originally written for piano duet or solo piano, are technically challenging for any violinist, and superbly idiomatic, constituting a kind of gypsy „Art of the Violin‟. They represent the summit of Brahms‟ „Hungarian‟ art, and Joachim‟s powers of transcription match them with violin writing of the greatest fastidiousness and authentic feeling.

Leanne Benjamin AM OBE Patron, Tait Memorial Trust dancing in Manon The Royal Ballet Photo by Johan Perrson 2011

Benjamin Britten‟s Suite, Op. 6, for Violin and Piano was composed during 1934-35 while he was a student at the Royal College of Music. The wonderful waltz finale is a flamboyant concert piece par excellence.

Wilbur Whitta‟s “Mr. Potato Head” is performed by its composer tonight and contains a large dance-like section. Regarding its creation, Wilbur writes: “When I travelled to London in 2016 to audition at the Royal Academy of Music, I was practising on a rather nice piano in a studio I had hired to prepare for my audition and I played some particular chord voicings which resonated very well on that piano. I then set the composition aside for some time and completed it when I moved to London in 2017…the song is inspired by the current global refugee crisis, and in particular by the number of refugees seeking asylum in Australia.”

Our programme whirls to its heady conclusion in waltz time, beguiling, intoxicating, unstoppable to the irresistible strains of Novello, Lehár and then, hugely surprising, Wagner with what could be called Sieglinde‟s dance of awakening, conflating spring and rapture in an unbridled outpouring of glorious song.

Ross Alley, London. April 2018

BIOGRAPHIES Ross Alley, a New Zealander, graduated from Victoria University of Wellington following which he became sole pianist for the Royal NZ School of Dance and was Musical Director for many shows in the capital city. Moving to Melbourne in 1979 he worked for the Australian Ballet School and Company before arriving in London where, for his first ten years, he was a pianist at the Royal Ballet School and Music Tutor to its Teacher Training Course.

In 1990 he was appointed as a music lecturer for Birkbeck College, University of London which also led to a wide range of other lecturing experience, becoming a frequent speaker at the Royal Opera House giving over 70 talks on opera and ballet music. Over the years he has given numerous pre-performance talks and lectures at the E.N.O, Wigmore Hall, the Wagner Society, Symphony Hall Birmingham, the Gustav Mahler Society, NADFAS, Kenwood, Artstur & the London Jewish Cultural Centre. Ross also organizes his own private lecture series on opera which take place each day of the week in various venues around London, the longest of which has been running for almost 30 years.

Chad Vindin, winner of the accompanist prize at the Royal Overseas League Competition, the Ludmilla Andrew Russian Song Accompanist Prize at the Royal Academy of Music, and the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards Accompanist‟s Prize, is one of the rising young stars of the accompaniment world.

Whilst maintaining a full workload as a staff pianist and vocal coach at both the Royal College and Royal Academy of Music, Chad performs regularly across the UK and internationally.

After studying with Malcolm Martineau and Michael Dussek at the Royal Academy of Music, Chad was awarded the position of Lord & Lady Lurgan Junior Fellow in Accompaniment at the Royal College of Music for two consecutive years. He is a regular staff member at the Oxenfoord International Summer School for Singers and Accompanists, the Abingdon Summer School for Solo Singers, the Wessex Solo Singer‟s course.

He is a founding member of the Sydney Chamber Opera Company and performed with OperaUpClose in their Olivier Award-winning production of La Bohème. As an avid orchestral musician he has performed with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Sinfonia‟s Education and Discovery Programs, and performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival. As a chamber musician, he performs as part of a horn trio called Trio SOL.Chad is generously supported by the Thornton Foundation, and is grateful to have received further support by the Leverhulme Trust, the Reizenstein scholarship, and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust.

BIOGRAPHIES Iona Allan is currently studying a Master of Performance at the Royal College of Music, under the tutelage of Gabrielle Lester. She is an RCM Award holder and Tait Trust Scholar supported by a Joan Weller Scholarship and the Ena Williams Award for Postgraduate Study Overseas. Since moving to London in September 2017, Iona has played in a masterclass for Alina Ibragimova, performed with professional Baroque ensemble Florilegium at Royal Festival Hall & Winchester Cathedral, and has held leading positions in the RCM orchestras with conductors Bernard Haitink & Vladimir Ashkenazy.

In Australia, Iona performed frequently with the Melbourne and Queensland Symphony Orchestras, and the Melbourne and Queensland Chamber Orchestras. Iona completed three years in the Professional Performance Program at the Australian National Academy of Music under the tutelage of Dr Robin Wilson and holds a Bachelor of Music in Advanced Performance (2014) from the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, where she studied with Michele Walsh.

Courtenay Cleary is an Australian violinist, and is currently on a full tuition scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music where she studies with Maureen Smith. In 2017 Courtenay performed as a soloist for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and other distinguished guests at Westminster Abbey for the Royal Commonwealth Service which was broadcast live on BBC television. During her time in London, she has performed as a soloist at prestigious venues including the Wigmore Hall, St James‟ Piccadilly, the Regent Hall and Colston Hall.

In 2018 Courtenay has concerto engagements with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra and the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra in Sydney. She is a Tait Memorial Trust and ABRSM scholar and was recently awarded second prize at the Australian Concerto and Vocal Competition. She is a member of the Patronus Quartet who in 2015 were semifinalists in the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition. She has performed at many international festivals including Tallinn Music Week and the Melbourne Festival and has recently recorded a solo contemporary album in collaboration with Australian composer, Benjamin Heim.

Samantha Crawford was awarded the Golden Medal with Honours at the 2017 Berliner International Music Competition, the NSW Wagner Society Emerging Singers Award and the Tait Memorial Trust Julian Baring Award.

In 2016 she won First Prize at the Wagner Society Singing Competition. Samantha graduated with Honours from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Equally at home in opera or concert, Samantha has performed at Glyndebourne, Teatro Real Madrid, Edinburgh Festival, Scottish Opera, Garsington Opera, Opera Holland Park, Aldeburgh Festival, Théâtre de Fontainebleau, Wigmore Hall, Barbican, Royal Albert Hall, with the BBC NOW and at Schlosstheater Schönbrunn.

Recent roles include Agathe Der Freischütz, Contessa Le nozze di Figaro, Fiordiligi Cosi fan tutte, Donna Elvira Don Giovanni, Rosalinde Die Fledermaus, title role Suor Angelica, Micaëla Carmen, Frau Fluth Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor and Erste Dame Die Zauberflöte.

Her performances have been broadcast on live cinema, television and radio for the BBC and filmed for DVD (Sony).

BIOGRAPHIES

Madeleine Randall is an Australian oboist originating from Sydney. After completing her Bachelor of Music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and her BMus Hons at the University of Tasmania, Madeleine was awarded the BBM Traveling Scholarship to audition for postgraduate study in the UK. She since has been awarded the Rose Mandelbaum Scholarship (University of Sydney), Guildhall School Scholarship and the Tait Memorial Trustâ€&#x;s Andrew Loewenthal Award to assist in her studies at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Madeleine is now in her second and final year of study at the Guildhall School and is completing the Artist Masters: Orchestral Artistry course in association with the London Symphony Orchestra and looks forward to continuing her career in the UK after graduating.

Andrey Lebedev is an acclaimed Australian classical guitarist with an insatiable curiosity to explore new avenues of music making. Andrey is the laureate of major international competitions including the 2017 ARD Competition and the 2017 Guitar Foundation of America. In 2014, he was the first young guitarist invited by Julian Bream to perform for the Julian Bream Trust, premiering Trust commissions by Harrison Birtwistle and Leo Brouwer at St Johns Smith Square. Acclaimed interpreter of contemporary music, he has had new works written for him by Brett Dean, Leo Brouwer and Peter Sculthorpe, and was awarded the Prize for the Best Interpretation of the Commissioned Piece at ARD. Equally at home with early repertoire, he was awarded First Prize and special Bach Prize at the Gisborne International Music Competition for his transcription of J.S. Bachâ€&#x;s D Minor Violin Partita, and performs regularly with singers as an accompanist on lute and guitar.

Performances at the Hong Kong Altamira International Guitar Symposium (China), Cultura Artistica Serie de Violao (Brazil), Dark Mofo Festival (Australia), and Buxton International Festival (UK), are a testament to his versatility as an artist of exceptional calibre.

BIOGRAPHIES Wilbur Whitta is an award winning Australian jazz pianist and composer who recently relocated to London. As an in-demand musician in Sydney, Wilbur was actively involved in many musical projects. He has performed around Australia, playing in and composing for various bands and ensembles.

At the age of 24 Wilbur has already been presented with numerous accolades, including a Tait Memorial Trust Award, The Boulton Memorial Fund Scholarship, The Rose Mandelbaum Scholarship in Music and a BBM Youth Support Award for Music. Wilbur‟s performance credentials include some of Australia‟s top Jazz spaces, as well as festivals including the Manly Jazz Festival, Rockhampton River Festival, Peats Ridge Music Festival and the Australian Music Week.

Wilbur‟s musical influences span from Classical composers such as Maurice Ravel, Sofia Gubaidulina and Elliot Carter to jazz pianists Bud Powell, Herbie Hancock, Brad Mehldau and Aaron Goldberg, right through to more contemporary bands such as “Kneebody” and “The Roots”. Wilbur relocated to London in September 2017 to accept a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) and is performing regularly around London.

Australian Mezzo-Soprano Bronte Zemlic has been celebrated for the "grace and warmth" of her performance as Inez, Il Trovatore, in her mainstage debut with CitiOpera (Classic Melbourne, 2017).

She has also held a scholarship place with Opera Scholars Australia for 3 years, during which time she had the opportunity to perform regularly as a soloist around Australia and 2016 she was a mentored scholar with the Dame Nellie Melba Trust.

Bronte was delighted and honoured to win the 2017 Australian International Opera Award. The Scholarship provides her with a fully funded place to undertake her Masters in Voice at the Wales International Academy of Voice for the 2017/18 academic year.

In partnership with this award from the AIOA she is also the recipient of the John Frost / Frank & Viola Tait Award, and was recently the recipient of the Bryant Extraordinary Award both from the Tait Memorial Trust.

She would also like to thank the generosity of the Ian Potter Cultural Trust for their contribution to her current studies with Dennis O‟Neill CBE, in Wales.

Save the Date - to book and more info www.taitmemorialtrust.org/events Wednesday 9th May 2018 Cadogan Hall, 5 Sloane Terrace London. SW1X 9DQ 7.30pm

Jayson Gillham with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra To book call 020 7730 4500

Wednesday 26th September 2018 Overseas House, Park Place London. SW1A 1LR 7 for 7.30pm

Concert featuring Australian & New Zealand prize winners in this years ROSL Music Competition To book please write to info@taitmemorialtrust.org

November/December 2018

Tait Winter Prom Our Annual promenade concert featuring our awardees More details tba

We are very grateful for the support that we receive from Principal Partner Commonwealth Bank of Australia Partners Australian UK Chamber Australian Charity Art Auction Australia Day Foundation Australian High Commission Australian Women’s Club, London Britain-Australia Society

The Cook Society The Offices of the Agent-General for: Queensland, South Australia, Victoria & Western Australia Rio Tinto Royal Over-Seas League With thanks Roses Only UK

Special thanks Ross Alley Danielle Gubbay Katrina Sheppeard Chad Vindin The Tait Committee Tonight’s helpers Tonight’s soloists

Proudly supporting young performing artists from Australia and New Zealand in the UK Founded in 1992

Principal Partner

Chairman Isla Baring OAM Founding Patrons Dame Joan Sutherland AC OM DBE, Viola, Lady Tait AM, John McCallum AO CBE, Googie Withers AO CBE Patrons Leanne Benjamin AM OBE, John Frost AM, Julian Gavin, The Dowager Countess of Harewood, Barry Humphries AO CBE, Piers Lane AO, June Mendoza AO OBE, Danielle de Niese, Ermes de Zan Trustees Justin Baring, Isla Baring OAM, Anne Longden, John Rendall. Susie Thornton The Leanne Benjamin Awards—Ballet Leanne Benjamin AM OBE, Artistic Director & Patron; Isla Baring OAM, Meredith Daneman Committee Fay Curtin, Jan Gowrie-Smith, Caroline Hamilton, Ros Higgins, Wendy Kramer, Alice McCahey, Gayle McDermott, Patricia Nimmo, Margaret Rodgers, Ann Seddon, Jacqueline Thompson, Rosemary Tuck Music Board Dr Helen Ayres, Isla Baring OAM, Jessica Cottis (Chair), Julian Gavin, Jayson Gillham, Deborah Humble, Belinda McFarlane, Anthony Roden, Katrina Sheppeard.

Honorary Member Nicola Downer AM Administrator James Hancock Registered charity 1042797 Tait Memorial Trust 4/80 Elm Park Gardens London SW10 9PD Phone +44 207 351 056 info@taitmemorialtrust.org www.taitmemorialtrust.org