Verona Maier returned to Rickmansworth for the 2nd time
Verona Maier started studying the piano at the age of 6, at the School of Music and Visual Arts no. 2 from Bucharest, and from 1975 she became a student of the "George Enescu" Art High School, which she graduated in 1980, with Maria Spirescu, Maria Zaharescu and Angela Marbe as teachers. In the summer of the same year, she was admitted to the University of Music in Bucharest, where she completed her studies in the piano class of teachers Ioana Minei and Ana Pittis. In 1983 she received a scholarship from the French Government for the piano courses of the Nice Summer Academy. She has a PhD in music and, since 1990, teaches at the Bucharest National University of Music, currently being a chamber music professor and vice-rector of the institution.
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She carries out a rich artistic activity, materialised in recitals, concerts and master classes (in Romania, Italy, Switzerland, France, Hungary, Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, Great Britain, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Norway, Israel, Iran, Macedonia) and participates in the "George Enescu" International Festival, the "New Music" International Festival and the Arts Festival (Bucharest), the Palencia and Santander International Festivals (Spain), the "Festum Musicae" Festival (Iasi) , Medieval Art Festival (Sighisoara), "Romanian-American Music Days" (Constan?a), Swiss Film Festival (Bucharest), Atelier Theater Festival (Sfântu Gheorghe), "Max Deutsch" Festival (Paris), Langvad Chamber Music Jamboree ( Denmark). She was invited, as a member or president, together with prestigious conductors and performers from Romania and abroad, she appears in orchestras such as the Radio Chamber Orchestra, the "Simfonietta" Chamber Orchestra or the Zurich Contemporary Opera Orchestra, the "George Enescu" Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Radio Orchestra, the Ensemble " Concord". He shows a particular preference for chamber music, a field in which he collaborates, among others, with Daniel Kientzy (saxophone), Pierre Yves Artaud, Claudi Arimany, Alan Weiss, Virgil Francu, Ion Bogdan, Stefanescu (flute), David Harris, Aurelian Octav Popa , Emil Visenescu, Sacha Rattle (clarinet), Remus Azoitei, Florin Croitoru, Thomas Bowes, Gabriel Croitoru, Vlad Stanculeasa, Constantin Serban (violin), Ioana Ostafi, Marin Cazacu (cello), Ion Ivan Roncea (harp). Along with Georgeta Stoleriu, Anca Iarosevici and Robert Dumitrescu has been part of the Studioul de Muzica Veche chamber ensemble for over 25 years, where they play harpsichord, organ and percussion. She made recordings and participated in numerous shows for radio and television, being present on seven CDs made in the country and abroad. She presented over a hundred musical works in the first audition or the first Romanian audition.
She was also requested by a number of Romanian directors to provide specialist consultancy for the music of several films for the big or small screen: "Moara lui Califar" (Serban Marinescu, 1986), "O vara de neuitat" (Lucian Pintilie, 1994), "Craii de Curtea Veche" (Mircea Veroiu, 1996), "Letters from a friend" (Mircea Veroiu, 1997). Since 2014, She is a member of the Union of Cinematographers.
She is the vice-president of the ACCUMM Foundation, established together with her husband, the late filmmaker and writer Petru Maier Bianu, and coordinates the Foundation's musical season, hosted by the ?u?u Palace in Bucharest.
From medieval to contemporary music and improvisation, from the piano keyboard to those of the harpsichord and organ or to some of the percussion instruments, Verona Maier "migrates" with ease and mobility through various musical territories. In the same sense, his concerns for the experiments in which music joins theater, literature or film are included. This was the reason for the decision to award Verona Maier in 2004 the Cultural Merit medal - 1st class by the President of Romania.
John Donegan Jazz Sextet returns to Rickmansworth for the 7th time
John was born in Cork but now lives in Chorleywood. He has performed in France, Spain and Portugal and at Birdland in New York.
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John's music has been partly influenced by jazz greats such as Bill Evans, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett and, as one reviewer recently noted, he has "an unfailing gift for melody". His compositions have been played on the BBC, Jazz FM and independent radio stations in both the UK and Ireland.
John's sextet includes some of the other outstanding talents on the British jazz scene. At the Rickmansworth concert, the tenor saxophonist will be Alex Hitchcock, whose own quintet won the Conad Jazz Contest, Italy's prestigious competition for young musicians. The sextet's alto and soprano saxophonist, Jamie O'Donnell, is also a prolific composer who studied at the Guildhall School of Music.
THE MAGGINI STRING QUARTET RETURNS TO TRMS FOR THE 7TH TIME
The programme included...
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Quartet in C Minor Op.18 No.4
John Ireland (1879 - 1962) Quartet no. 1 in D Minor
Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904) String Quartet in A flat op.105
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Beethoven's opus18 quartets were written between 1798 and 1800, at the end of his early period, which ended in 1799/1800 with the Septet op.20. This period was characterised by developments and experiments in many forms that had been pioneered by Haydn and particularly Mozart: piano trios, string trios, eleven piano sonatas, a horn sonata, three violin sonatas, two cello sonatas, a string quintet, six string quartets, a piano & wind quintet, and two piano concertos
Tonight's quartet was published in 1801 and dedicated, like the rest of the op.18 set, to his noble friend and patron, Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz. It is actually the second string quartet that Beethoven composed and consists of four movements, all of which are in C minor or major. The first has a strong sense of forward propulsion given by the cello's repeated quavers, contrasting with a more lyrical second subject that stlll has the uneasy quavers as accompaniment. But, as the late Dr Robert Simpson writes "by far the most serious part of this quartet is the so-called minuet, having the urgency of some of Beethoven's later scherzo movements (which incidentally when they were not humorous he never called "scherzo" or "joke"). This dramatically intense "minuet" has some remarkable chromaticisms, and the finale is one of Beethoven's rare excursions into the Hungarian style of which Haydn was fond; it is a simple rondo with a contrasting much broader second theme. At the end, the tempo increases and unlike Haydn in such cases, Beethoven allows the minor key to persist to the end.
John Ireland was born in Bowdon, Cheshire in England to literary parents.He entered the Royal College of Music (RCM) at the age of fourteen in 1893 where his teachers included Frederick Cliffe for piano, Walter Parratt for organ and Charles Stanford for composition. During the first decade of the twentieth century Ireland worked as an organist, choirmaster and pianist, and established his name as a composer with works like the Phantasie Trio (1906). The impact of the his second Violin Sonata (1915-17) at its première in 1917 made Ireland a national figure overnight and within 24 hours of its publication all copies had been sold. Ireland destroyed almost all of his student works, with the exception of the two string quartets that were published posthumously. From 1923 to 1939 he taught at the RCM where his pupils included Benjamin Britten.
Many aspects of Ireland the man are mirrored in his music. His lonely, shy personality had its roots in an unhappy childhood and this perhaps accounts for the melancholy strain in his music. Ireland's primary inspirations were England's heritage, its poetry and its landscapes.
The two quartets date from his student years at the RCM. Although his first and second subjects were piano and organ, Ireland harboured ambitions as a composer, and particularly wanted to study with his idol, the eminent and irascible Stanford. Apparently the first quartet was intended as a work which would impress Stanford to take on Ireland as one of his pupils. It was completed in March 1897 and was supposedly rejected by Stanford as, "dull as ditchwater, m'bhoy". Stanford, however, subsequently arranged for a group of students to perform it and Ireland was encouraged by the praise given by the influential Director of the RCM, Sir Hubert Parry. Ireland referred to both the first quartet and the second quartet completed the following September, as RCM scholarship pieces. In the event, the result was success since Ireland was awarded a four-year scholarship to study with his hero.
Dvorak was born in 1841, the son of a butcher and innkeeper in the village of Nelahozeves, some forty miles north of Prague. It was natural that he should at first have been expected to follow the family trade, as the eldest son. His musical abilities, however, soon became apparent and were encouraged by his father. Further study of German and of music at Kamenice, a town in northern Bohemia, led to his admission in 1857 to the Prague Organ School, where he studied for the following two years. Recognition came to Dvo?ák in 1874, when his application for an Austrian government award brought his music to the attention of the critic Eduard Hanslick in Vienna and subsequently to that of Brahms, a later member of the examining committee. European-wide fame followed: In 1891 he had become professor of composition at Prague Conservatoire and, in the summer of 1891, he was invited to become director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. With the backing of Jeannette Thurber and her husband, this institution was intended to foster American music, hitherto dominated by musicians from Europe or largely trained there. Dvo?ák's time in America influenced his own, notably his Symphony From the New World, his American Quartet and American Quintet,
Samuel Bristow is a versatile young musician currently based in London. While he specialises in the organ music of the French Baroque and German Romantic periods, he possesses an eclectic repertoire encompassing works from the fourteenth century to the present. Samuel is the organ scholar of St Paul's Cathedral, London. As one of the full time organists there, he gives recitals on the world-renowned organ and regularly accompanies and conducts services, working with the famous Cathedral Choir in the daily cycle of worship.
The programme included... Works by - J.S. Bach W.A. Mozart (Fantasie in F Minor K.608) Robert Schumann Samuel Barber (Adagio for Strings in A Minor); and David Halls
...Samuel was trained at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, where he graduated with first class honours in 2019. His teachers were Daniel Moult and Henry Fairs. Other important influences have been Kerry Beaumont, Paul Leddington Wright and Paul Spicer. During this time, he acted as accompanist to the prestigious Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir under the direction of Jeffrey Skidmore and was a recipient of the John Campbell Keyboard Prize. He also held organ scholarships at Coventry and Birmingham Cathedrals, where he was an integral part to the respective music departments. Highlights included accompanying the world premiere of an anthem by Francis Jackson commemorating the retirement of Canon Marcus Huxley and a concert appearance with Jethro Tull. Following this, he was organ scholar at Salisbury Cathedral, where he frequently played for and conducted the Cathedral choirs, assisted in the training of the choristers and worked at the Cathedral School.
Born in London, Samuel grew up in Gloucestershire and was the organ scholar ofCirencester Parish Church, studying under Dr Anthony Hammond and Dr David Ponsford. He has attended organ study trips taking him to France, Germany and the Netherlands, enabling him to participate in masterclasses with Martin Schmeding, Pieter van Dijk, Arvid Gast, Joachim Vogelsänger, Ullrich Bohme and Eric Lebrun.
Samuel has performed in many high-profile venues throughout the United Kingdom, including St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol; Holy Trinity, Sloane Square; St Bride's, Fleet Street; University of St Andrew's, Scotland and the cathedrals of Bristol, Truro, St Paul's, Blackburn, Bradford, Portsmouth and Glasgow. He has broadcasted for BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio WM, BBC Radio Coventry and Warwickshire and made an appearance on BBC One's "Songs of Praise".
He holds associateship diplomas from the Royal College of Organists and Trinity College London. In addition to his work at St Paul's and as a freelance concert organist, he continues his studies privately with Daniel Moult.
Qualifications and Accolades
1st Class Hons degree-organ performance-the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
Associateship of the Royal College of Organists
Associateship of Trinity College London with distinction
Organ Scholar at St Paul's Cathedral, London
Formerly Organ Scholar at Salisbury Cathedral
Formerly Organ Scholar at Birmingham Cathedral
Formerly Organ Scholar at Coventry Cathedral
Symphonia Academica, one of England's most versatile string chamber music ensembles, performed not only The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi but also The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires by Astor Piazzolla, the king of the Argentine tango.
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Vivaldi's work, published in 1725, needs almost no introduction. Nigel Kennedy's 1989 recording of the four baroque violin concertos sold more than two million copies.
Piazzolla's Seasons are very different musical compositions. They were originally written for a cabaret band between 1965 and 1970.
The mischievous pairing of Vivaldi and Piazzolla offers exactly the type of variety that the Symphonia Academica musicians enjoy. Violinist Peter Bussereau, the ensemble's artistic director, says that despite their forbidding-sounding name, Symphonia Academica like to present musical programmes that are "accessible, bright and melodic - we give a wide berth to the turgid and obscure".
They played--- Astor Piazzolla (1921 - 1992) Cuatros Estaciones Portenos (Four Seasons of Buenos Aires) Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741)
Concerto No. 1 in E major, op.8, RV269
"Spring" (La primavera) 1. Allegro non molto
2. Adagio e pianossimo sempre
3. Allegro pastorale Concerto No. 3 in G minor, op.8, RV315
"Summer" (L'estate) 1. Allegro
2. Largo e piano - presto e forte
3. Presto Concerto No. 3 in F major, op.8, RV293
"Autumn" (L'atunno) 1. Allegro
2. Adagio molto
3. Allegro Concerto No. 4 in F minor, op.8, RV297
"Winter" (L'inverno) 1. Allegro non molto
2. Largo
3. Allegro
Daphne Moody (violin) Steven Halls (cello) David Halls (piano)
afternoon concert at 3.00 pm on Wednesday 9 March
They played - Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Sonata in C minor for Violin, Cello and Continuo, RV83 Frank Bridge (1879-1941)
Three Miniatures Set 1
1. Minuet;
2. Gavotte: Moderato;
3. Allegro con moto;
4. David Halls (b.1963) Quodlibet on Miniatures by Frank Bridge, especially composed for this performance Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)
Piano Trio No.2 in G minor, op.26
Rachel Roberts is one of Europe's leading violists and performs internationally as soloist and chamber musician.
Tim Horton is one of the UK's leading pianists, equally at home in solo and chamber repertoire. He is a founder member of both the Leonore Piano Trio and Ensemble 360 and has been a regular guest pianist with the Nash Ensemble. He was invited to make his solo debut at Wigmore Hall in 2016.
They played - Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Marchenbilder, op.113
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Sonata for Viola & Piano in F minor, op.120, no.1
a composition by Henri Francois Vieuxtemps
Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)
Viola Sonata
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