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Saturday 11 November 7.30pm
Three Composers: Ball, Barnard & Davis

Union Chapel  £10/£6 concessions

Keith Barnard, piano; Neil Davis, viola; Rosemary Forbes-Butler, soprano; Althea Ifeka, oboe/cor anglais; Jackie Norrie, violin; Phil D'Arcy, viola; Dinah Beamish, cello

Programme

Lawrence Ball Melodic Geometry (2000)(viola)*
Neil Davis Songs On Poems Of Robert Frost (soprano/viola)*
Lawrence Ball Cathedral (1978) (soprano/piano strings)
Lawrence Ball Waterwheel Variations (1973/2000) (soprano/viola)*

Interval

Keith Barnard Healing Rays of "Blue-Silver", Violet and Gold (piano quartet)*
Lawrence Ball Optical Shuffles (2000)(oboe/cor anglais, violin, viola, cello)*

* World premiere

Performers/Composers

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. See also long biography in "Articles".

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.

Lawrence Ball is a composer, improviser and audio-visual artist, and has written for dance, film, orchestra and choir as well as electronic and computer music. He has written over 130 scores and recorded over 1500 improvisations. He addresses primarily meditative state-of-mind and healing presence in creating music having had strong realisations and breakthroughs in the 1970s, steering him in a very different direction from most other composers at that time. His is one of the broadest scopes of any composer.

Althea Ifeka was born in Nigeria of Nigerian and English parentage, grew up in Canberra, Australia and completed her education in England, at Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music, and at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. Since entering the profession Althea has developed a fast-growing career as a soloist, recitalist, chamber ensemble and orchestral player, having appeared frequently as soloist with a variety of orchestras including the Milton Keynes City Orchestra and the Bath City Orchestra. Throughout 2000 she will perform as Guest Principal Cor Anglais with both the BBCSO and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. This is her third season of collaboration with the Planet Tree Music Festival.

Jackie Norrie to come

Phil D'Arcy to come

Dinah Beamish is a freelance cellist.She is a director of Electra Strings,a string group formed in 1990.They have recorded and toured with artists such as Mark Knopfler,Beverley Craven and Massive Attack,appeared regularly on Later With Jools Holland for BBC2 TV and performed in concert with Bacharach and Costello,Eddi Reader,Lyle Lovett,The Cranberries,to name but a few.Dinah has also worked with theatre companies,Lumiere and Son,Major Road and Moving Theatre,performing on stage and as M.D.She also plays with orchestras such as Orchestra of St.John's,English National Ballet and the English National Orchestra.Dinah recently played for The National Theatre production of Albert Speer.

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.

Notes

Melodic Geometry: This is a series of tiny fragments strung together. Quite reflective, and never going above a moderate volume level, it is a deeply mindful music created from varying and developing very simple melodic shapes.

Songs On Poems Of Robert Frost: to come

Cathedral: This piece, written in 1978, came composed with various experimental options, other than the standard piano accompaniment version which was performed on several occasions by the American mezzo-soprano Debbie Wilkinson-Hill with the composer. One option was to sing the piece, unaccompanied, with amplified piano string resonances. It was not until 1998 that Rosemary Forbes-Butler took the piece in this direction, although her realisation was to simply sing the vocal line into undampened piano strings. The effect is very like the echo of a large cathedral, and is the version to be heard this time.

Waterwheel Variations: based on a theme written in 1973 for Turkish saz, these are a stated theme followed by three variations varying in rhythm and mood, and are set to the letter names of the notes being sung. The 27 years between original creation and these variations allowed this music to be based on a deep-rooted subconscious absorption, perhaps like wine maturing? The theme is a waterwheel because of its tumbling and flowing qualities, these being more evident than any structural shape.

Healing Rays of "Blue-Silver", Violet and Gold: for piano quartet - written in 1994 and revised in 1997, this composition is in three sections with subtle contrasts in harmony, unison and instrumental groupings. The work expresses the purity of the higher colour-rays. A deeply monodic echo is reverberated by chord clusters, with peaceful tonal combinations. Even after the conclusion of the piece, the arc of gold can still be felt and heard in its highest harmonic.

Optical Shuffles: Two movements. The first a series of adventures with rhythmic and melodic patterns, in a major tonality, contrasting tightly constructed music with freer, sometimes soloistic playing. The second is very different- extremely peaceful, very dreamlike with aeolian mode figures and closely packed held chords and very slow tempos.