Tag Archives: premiere

Composer in Focus, Notes on Music

Winter Nights weekend premiere

1 Comment

It’s always both exciting and a little bit daunting, taking on a contemporary piece of music to give the UK premiere – and even more so when the composer herself is in the audience!

Stephanie Martin attending the afternoon rehearsal
Stephanie Martin

Last weekend saw the Music department’s combination of concerts, ‘Winter Journeys, Winter Nights‘ featuring the String Sinfonia, Concert Band, Chorus, Orchestra, Cecilian Choir and Flute Choir coming together over two nights to perform seasonal works, the centrepiece of which was a marvellously colourful seasonal cantata, Winter Nights, by the Canadian composer, Stephanie Martin. This five-movement work sets a variety of poems focusing on different aspects of the winter season, from the anonymous ‘Cold is the night when when stars shine bright,’  through the fierce drama of ‘Loud rings the frozen earth’ by James Thompson, to the wonder and mystery of Cori Martin’s ‘Could it be true / Old Thomas Hardy’s tale,’ all culminating in Thomas Campion’s ‘Now winter nights enlarge.’

The piece distils a variety of colours, textures and vivid images from the cast of voices, strings and percussion, reflecting the manifold aspects of the season, and the whole cantata captures the full range of the season’s contrasts – its warmth, magic, wonder, jollity, bitterness, wildness, and revelry – bringing the different scenes to vivid life with a vibrant energy.

Stephanie talking with choir and orchestra

We were delighted to welcome Stephanie to the afternoon rehearsal – always a slightly scary moment, the first time performing a piece in front of the composer – and then to the evening performance. With warmth and generosity, Stephanie talked with the performers in the afternoon about the piece, including the three students singing the solo trio heralding the arrival of Winter; and she received a hugely enthusiastic round of applause following the performance later that evening.

Congratulations to all the performers involved across the entire weekend, and our thanks in particular to Stephanie for taking the time to stop over in Canterbury on her flight from Europe to Canada, to come to Colyer-Fergusson and be part of the event.

Enthusiastic applause greets the composer after the performance

Here is the performance in full, filmed and used with kind permission from Stephanie Martin.

Read the full weekend programme here (PDF).

Notes on Music

Chorus and Orchestra to give UK premiere in December

Leave a comment

As part of our December concert season, the University Chorus and Orchestra will be giving the UK premiere of Winter Nights, a marvellously-colourful seasonal cantata by the Canadian composer, Stephanie Martin.

Stephanie Martin

Associate professor of music at York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance, and Design in Toronto, Stephanie also directs Schola Magdalena, a women’s ensemble for chant, medieval and modern music, and is also conductor emeritus of Pax Christi Chorale, and former director of music at the historic church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Toronto. We’re delighted that Stephanie will be flying in for the performance – so no pressure at all…!

Winter Nights sets a series of poems including a vivacious setting of Tennyson’s ‘Ring Out, Wild Bells’ and Thomas Campion’s ‘Now Winter Nights Enlarge’ as part of an evocative sequence supported by string orchestra. The piece revels in a richly-colourful harmonic landscape, with contrasting rhythmic energy, closing with a wonderfully pastoral-like setting of the lines

The summer hath his joys
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

University Chorus at its first rehearsal of the year!

Alongside the cantata, the orchestra will be performing a seasonal pot pourri of works including movements from Tchaikovsky’s glittering Nutcracker Suite, Prokofiev’s Troika, Delius’ Sleigh Ride and the concert-suite from Polar Express to reflect the Christmas spirit.

More details and tickets online here.

Notes on Music

A feast of Fitkin on Radio 3

Leave a comment

For all the Fitkin fans amongst us, there’s a veritable Fitkin-fest on Radio 3 this week.

From Monday, and on iPlayer until next Monday, there’s the chance to hear the London premiere of L, written as a present for and here also performed by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Then from Tuesday (also on iPlayer for a week here), there’s an interview with Fitkin himself on ‘In Tune,’ together with the composer playing three short piano pieces live in the studio, and a broadcast of ‘Metal’ and an extract from ‘Circuit.’

From tonight, there will be the chance to hear the Prom premiere of his Cello Concerto, also written for Yo-Yo Ma, after which is a broadcast of some of his chamber works performed by the London Sinfonietta Academy Ensemble, from the ‘Proms Composer Portraits,’ where Fitkin will be in conversation with Tom Service, and presenting his ‘Sciosophy,’ ‘Hurl,’ and ‘Sinew.’

A previous post about Fitkin, including the chance to listen to some of his pieces, appeared on here back in February.

A Fervent Feast from Radio 3: don’t miss.

And here’s part of ‘Loud’ from earlier this year at London’s King’s Place: