ssemk full programme · exploring the unique sounds of the second of biber’s triptych. often...

2019/2020 Season

Patron: Linda Nicholson www.ssemk.org

Saturday 12th October 2019 7.30pm

Helen Charlston mezzo soprano

Newe Vialles

Byrd’s Lullaby Consort songs of love, death & sleep

The consort song, which originated in the theatre songs of the late 16th century, was a uniquely English genre, setting sacred and secular poetry to the accompaniment of a consort of viols. Perhaps because of its dramatic roots, it was associated particularly with texts of invocation, memorial, and lullaby. Newe Vialles, along with Helen Charlston (winner of the 2018 Handel Singing Competition, Mesmerising – Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, The Gramaphone), present a programme of profound and intimate consort songs from the late Elizabethan era: from William Byrd’s great laments for Sir Philip Sidney and Thomas Tallis, to anonymous gems by forgotten composers, encompassing lullabies, invocations to the muses, and moralistic tales, the programme exploring the gamut of Elizabethan musical and poetic expression. The songs are complemented by instrumental music from the golden age of the English viol consort, by Thomas Tomkins, Orlando Gibbons, and Henry Purcell. Hailed “a rather special mezzo” (Music Web International), Helen Charlston began singing as chorister and head chorister of the St Albans Abbey Girls Choir. She then studied music at Trinity College, Cambridge where she held a choral scholarship for four years. Helen has often been heard on BBC Radio 3 in live radio concert relays, and as a guest on In Tune. She features on recordings released recently, Bach’s B minor Mass with the OAE with the choir of /Trinity College, Cambridge and Bach’s Actus Tragicus & Himmelskönig sei willkommen with Amici Voices and the Amici Baroque Players. The viol consort Newe Vialles was launched in 2015 by co-directors Henrik Persson and Caroline Ritchie. Its members are some of the finest period instrumentalists of their generation, having studied at some of Europe’s most prestigious institutions, including the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Schola Cantorum in Basel and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and with teachers such as Richard Campbell, Jonathan Manson and Sarah Cunningham.

Tickets: £21.00 £18.50 £16.00 Book all 5 concerts by 12th October for 20% discount:

£16.80 £14.80 £12.80

Every discounted ticket must be matched by a further discounted ticket from each of the other four events

Saturday 16th November 2019 Reception: 7pm Concert: 8pm

Thomas Guthrie baritone

Daniel Grimwood fortepiano

Winterreise, Op. 89, D. 911 Franz Schubert

(“amazing…extraordinary…wonderful… absolutely compelling” Sean Rafferty, BBC Radio 3, In Tune A performance with a difference: a production originally commissioned by New Kent Opera for singer, puppet, and fortepiano, with animated drawings by Peter Bailey, puppet by Mandarava. Thomas Guthrie is an innovative and award-winning British director and musician working in theatre and music to tell stories in vivid, new and direct ways. A former Jette Parker Young Artist Stage Director at the Royal Opera House in London, his revival of David McVicar’s Die Zauberflöte there won What’s On Stage Best Revival 2018. His own critically acclaimed productions of Le Nozze di Figaro and Die Zauberflöte at Longborough Festival Opera led to an invitation to direct Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer there in 2018 (‘one of the best productions at this venue I have seen’, Rupert Christiansen, Telegraph). With a reputation for stylish, unfussy, energetic, physical, theatrical and sometimes controversial work, the clarity of the storytelling, the commitment of the performers and a pre-eminence of musical values are at the heart of his productions. This extraordinary interpretation combines his expertise as a singer, (chilling and thrilling, The Sunday Times), with that of Mandarava’s puppet, which he manipulates himself throughout the performance. Guthrie is joined by fortepianist, Danel Grimwood, a performer of international renown, combining an exceptional talent, rare versatility and refinement, with an inquisitive personality. (“Probably the finest all-round musician I have ever known” – Felix Aprahamian. With a repertoire ranging from Elizabethan Virginal music to the works of living composers, he enjoys a solo and chamber career, which has taken him across the globe, performing on the most prestigious concert platforms, including the Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Purcell Room in London, Saffron Hall, Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, Symphony Hall Birmingham, the Sage Gateshead, the Three Choirs Festival, the Rachmaninoff and Gnessin Halls in Moscow, the Carnegie Hall in New York, as well as venues in Germany, Austria, Italy, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Estonia, Taiwan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Lebanon and Oman. Although primarily a pianist, he is frequently to be found performing on harpsichord, organ, viola or composing at his desk. Grimwood is a passionate exponent of the early piano and has given a recital of Chopin’s Etudes on the composer’s own Pleyel piano.


£18.40 £16.80 £13.60


Saturday 14th December 2019 7pm

Elin Manahan Thomas soprano Elizabeth Kenny lute & theorbo

Now Winter Comes Slowly

To warm your hearts during Advent, this is a programme which welcomes festivities with delicious music from all around Europe. From Handel’s merry arias to Bach’s more contemplative hymns, we bring you a collection of seasonal and celebratory songs. Elin Manahan Thomas is one of the most exceptional sopranos of her generation. Since releasing her début album “Eternal Light in 2007, with the OAE, she has performed at many of the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals, and with leading orchestras and conductors, including the Edinburgh, Canterbury and Lufthansa Festivals, at the World Première of Sir John Taverner’s Requiem and in 2018 she was honoured to perform at the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. (Ravishing simplicity, The Times). She is joined by Elizabeth Kenny, one of Europe’s leading lute players. Equally at home in solo. chamber music and the opera house, she combines a love of the lute repertoire with a flair for imaginative collaborations that enrich an unusually varied performing life. In twenty years of touring she has played with many of the world’s best period instrument groups and experienced many different approaches to music making. She played with Les Arts Florissants 1992-2007 and with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment 1997-2015 and still returns to initiate seventeenth century projects such as The Hypochondriack and A Restoration Tempest. (Indecently beautiful, Toronto Post – Radical, The Guardian).

Handel So shall the lute and harp awake Monteverdi Exulta Filia Merula Canzonetta spiritual sopra alla nanna J.S.Bach Ich freue mich in dir

Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier O Jesulein süss

A. Scarlatti Fortunati pastori…Tocco la prima sorte Campion Now winter nights enlarge Purcell Scenes from King Arthur and the Fairy Queen Sequence of traditional Christmas songs: Trad. French A minuit fut fait un reveil Trad. English The truth sent from above

Adam lay ybounden Gabriel’s message

Trad. Welsh Carol y Plygain Handel Or let the merry bells ring round


£16.80 £14.80 £12.80


Saturday 4th April 2020 Reception: 6.30pm Concert: 7.30pm

Nicolette Moonen baroque violin

Pawel Siwczak chamber organ Reader to be announced

The Sorrowful Mysteries from The Rosary Sonatas Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber

Sonata 6: The Agony in the Garden

Sonata 7: The Scourging of Jesus Sonata 8: The Crowning with Thorns Sonata 9: The Carrying of the Cross

Sonata 10: The Crucifixion

Organ Music by Buxtehude & Pachelbel Continuing the theme of our 2019 Lent Concert with reflective words and music, SSEMK presents an evening exploring the unique sounds of the second of Biber’s triptych. Often evoking a mood of profound contemplation, the six sonatas follow each other through the gospel story of Good Friday. Each will be interspersed with organ music of Buxtehude and Pachelbel and contemporaneous poems. Nicolette Moonen is well known to SSEMK audiences as the artistic director of The Bach Players who were Artists-in-Residence for the first four years of SSEMK’s existence. Her taste in music has been shaped by a love of languages. She is passionate about the connection between language and music. She teaches at the Royal Academy of Music in London and directed the baroque orchestra at Dartington from 1998 to 2013. Nicolette studied with Jaap Schröder and Sigiswald Kuijken and has played with most British and other European baroque orchestras (Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, English Baroque Soloists, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, amongst many). She has been invited to lead ensembles such as Collegium Vocale Gent, La Chapelle Royale, Ex Cathedra, the European Union Baroque Orchestra, and English Touring Opera. Nicolette is joined by Pawel Siwczak, winner of the 8th Broadwood Harpsichord Competition, who now spends a busy career as a continuo player and conducting from the keyboard, collaborating with, amongst others Florilegium, The Bach Players, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Gabrieli Consort and Players, The King's Consort, Capella Cracoviensis, BBC Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Britten Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra amongst others both at home and abroad.


£16.80 £14.80 £12.80 Every discounted ticket must be matched by a further discounted ticket from each of the other four events

Saturday 16th May 2020 Concert: 7.30pm

Stephen Preston baroque flute Harpsichordist to be announced

The Flute Sonatas and Partita of Johann Sebastian Bach

Sonata in e for flute & continuo, BWV 1034

Sonata in C for unaccompanied flute, BWV 1033 Sonata in A for flute & concertante harpsichord, BWV 1032

Partita in a for unaccompanied flute, BWV 1013 Sonata in b for flute & concertante harpsichord, BWV 1030

Of unfailingly remarkable quality, all these works exploit the full potential of an instrument which was only just coming into its own when they were written as it superseded the recorder. The concert will include a selection from the six sonatas and, in addition, the A minor Partita for solo flute. The English flautist, Stephen Preston, began flute playing in his teens when he bought a fife at a jumble sale and taught himself to play it. He took up the flute to plug a gap in Haberdashers Askes’ school orchestra. On leaving school he won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he studied with Geoffrey Gilbert. In the late 1960’s he began exploring contemporary music with an ensemble dedicated to the performance of new works by young composers, sponsored by the Arts Council, going on to become the flautist in the Galliard Harpsichord Trio, alongside harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock and cellist, Anthony Pleeth. The Trio made its London debut in 1966. The professional success and musical vitality of the Trio helped lay the foundation of Stephen Preston’s early career, which took a decisive turn after a chance encounter with an 18th century flute. This, and his proximity to the Carse Collection of Wind Instruments housed at the Horniman Museum in South London, led to Stephen teaching himself to play 18th and 19th century flutes (Baroque and classical flute, then generally known as the flauto traverso), using the method books together with a wide range other historical performance sources. During the 1970’s, Stephen Preston was invited to become principal flute in all the leading period-instrument ensembles and orchestras in the UK as they were founded, including The English Concert, The Academy of Ancient Music and London Baroque to name but a few, with whom he gave many concert tours and made many recordings. Following twenty years as a choreographer, he has returned to performing, teaching, (at all the major UK conservatories), and research into birdsong.


£18.40 £16.80 £13.60


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Please send me the following full priced best available tickets: Insert number required at [ ]:

TOTALS Saturday 12th October 2019 [ ] @ £21.00 ________ [ ] @ £18.50 ________ [ ] @ £16.00 ________ Saturday 16th November 2019 [ ] @ £23.00 ________ [ ] @ £21.00 ________ [ ] @ £17.00 ________ Saturday 14th December 2019 [ ] @ £21.00 ________ [ ] @ £18.50 ________ [ ] @ £16.00 ________ Saturday 4th April 2020 [ ] @ £21.00 ________ [ ] @ £18.50 ________ [ ] @ £16.00 ________ Saturday 16th May 2020 [ ] @ £23.00 ________ [ ] @ £21.00 ________ [ ] @ £17.00 ________ Sub-Total: £_______

Benefit from 20% Discount for Season Tickets for all 5 concerts

Book all five concerts before the opening concert to receive 20% discount off the full price

Please send me the following full priced best available season tickets: Insert number required at [ ]:

Saturday 12th October 2019 } [ ] @ Full Price of £87.20 (instead of £109.00) Saturday 16th November 2019 } Saturday 14th December 2019 } [ ] @ Middle Price of £78.00 (instead of £97.50) Saturday 4th April 2020 } Saturday 16th May 2020 } [ ] @ Lower Price of £65.60 (instead of £82.00) Sub-Total: £_______ Please register me*/us* as a Friend/Friends of SSEMK (£25 for sole membership, £35 for joint membership at same address) First Name _____________________________________ Second Name, (if joint) _____________________________________ I*/We* enclose £25*/£35* for the year ending 31st August 2020: Sub-Total: £______ I enclose a cheque made payable to SSEMK for the Grand Total together with a sae Posted to SSEMK Box Office, Ruffyns, Roman Road, Aldington, Ashford, TN25 7EF

GRAND TOTAL: £_____________

ssemk full programme · exploring the unique sounds of the second of biber’s triptych. often...

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