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Thursday 9 November 7.30pm
Keith Barnard's Music

Burgh House   £10/£6 concessions

Keith Barnard, piano; Rosemary Forbes-Butler, soprano; Neil Davis, viola

Programme

Keith Barnard Nocturne (piano); Music For Meditation(piano); Meditation Upon The Divine Will (viola)*

Interval

Keith BarnardThe Healing Shower Of Pure Light (piano)*; Far, far away I go (soprano/piano) *; The Light Of Inspiration (piano)

* World premiere

Performers

Keith Barnard studied composition with Arnold Cooke (himself a student of Paul Hindemith). He is a composer who believes in the unique sonic power of cosmic sound, and the healing colour-energy inherent in each musical note, melody, harmony and counterpoint. He feels that music is a spiritual manifestation of the sacred word, given to humanity by God. He has composed piano, vocal, chamber, choral and orchestral music, as well as a two-section chamber opera, The Healing Angels. He has taken part in numerous concerts and recitals of his music in the UK and abroad. He is also a poet.

Rosemary Forbes-Butler is a soprano with a very multi-hued plumage. Covering many styles and adventures, her main areas are contemporary music, French music and the American musical. Gillian Carcas, Brian Inglis, Lawrence Ball, Keith Barnard and Paul Ayres are a few composers who have written and dedicated music to her and she is awaiting a piece from Terry Riley. Rosemary's duo Music Of The Fuchsia performs specialist arrangements of Purcell, Weil, Monteverdi and Lennon and McCartney,....and has run 5 series of concerts/shows. She has sung Dusapin, Birtwhistle, Tippet, Goldschmidt, Boulez, Janacek, and Henze in top concert halls and festivals in England with London Sinfonietta Voices. Rosemary runs a female accapella group Rosy Voices with a theatrical slant, and has also recorded backing vocals for Pavarotti, Dolores and LL Cool J, Miss E Eliott and the Pet Shop Boys. She sang Satie's Socrate in the Planet Tree Festival with Songs on Satie Texts by John White accompanied by John Tilbury. She also premiered Lawrence Ball's Speak Sing Play with Sarah Leonard.

Neil Davis was born in West Yorkshire. He studied at Chetham's, Manchester and the Guildhall in London. He has played with the Scarborough Spa Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. He is now based in the Midlands and is a freelance chamber player and teacher. Neil has had many of his compositions performed in London, including his Viola Concerto, a collaboration with Lawrence Ball.

Notes

Nocturne: composed in 1990. This short piece is written to the key/resonance of F-sharp - gentle melodic themes contrast with deep bass chords, giving the colours of yellow and emerald-green.

Music For Meditation: A free composition. Cascading harmonies superimposed with punctuated octaves. A reflective middle section evokes the song of the Earth in all its tremelandic splendour.

Meditation Upon The Divine Will: written in December 1999 and dedicated to Neil Davis, this is an extended composition on the scale of a large rondo. The viola takes the listener on a journey into the existence of soul and mind.

The Healing Shower Of Pure Light: composed in 2000, this work evokes the beautiful, cool and refreshing white 'light-shower' - there are also hues of red and orange tinged with a powerful violet ray.

Song "Far,far away I go": written in 1998, this short and simple song-setting for soprano and piano is dedicated to Rosemary Forbes-Butler. Extended vocal lines are balanced by instrumental solos and resonant repitition. The text is from the composer's collection of 'outer-world' poems.

The Light Of Inspiration: Another free composition - A kaleidoscopic panorama of sound using the whole range of the piano in all its contrapuntal dexterity.