|
The Alauna
Ensemble was originally formed to
give a performance in Chichester Cathedral of a piano quintet by the
late Robert Stewart, composer, pianist, repetiteur and organ scholar.
The ensemble was reformed six years ago and has performed concerts in
England and Wales,
including concerts in Oxford and London. |
|
Graham
Mayger (flute) won a
Foundation Scholarship to the Royal College of Music, then a French
Government Scholarship to study in Paris with Jean Pierre Rampal.
Returning to London, he then played with most of the major London
orchestras, and for 27 years enjoyed a special relationship with the
Northern Sinfonia. He now holds principal flute positions with many
freelance orchestras and is a member of the London Harpsichord Ensemble.
He has broadcast as a soloist in many recitals and concertos, including
a concerto performance at the Promenade concerts. His recordings for Unicorn
of Vivaldi chamber concertos, including the ‘Goldfinch’ have been
very highly praised.
He was appointed to the staff of the Royal College of Music at the age
of 24; becoming the youngest professor ever to be appointed. Several of
his past students now hold important orchestral positions in this
country and abroad. He is also professor of the flute at the Royal
Military School of Music, Kneller Hall. |
|
|
James
Mainwaring (clarinet) was born in
Morriston and is the member of a musical family with two brothers who
play trumpet and viola. He started the clarinet at the age of nine and
went on to study clarinet and saxophone at the Welsh College of Music
and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music, with Angela Malsbury, Andrew
Marriner and Richard Addison.
James has worked a great deal on the Continent and lived for three years
in Hamburg, during which time he played with the Hamburg Mozart
Orchestra.
Since his return to the United Kingdom he has pursued a busy and varied
career, working with orchestras and chamber ensembles and touring West
End shows. |
|
|
Peter
Morgan (bassoon) studied with Roger
Birnstingl and Martin Gatt at the Guildhall School of Music and with
Mordechai Rechtmann in Tel Aviv. Peter has worked with many of the
country's leading orchestras and ensembles and for twelve years, until
1996, was principal bassoon with the Orchestra of English National
Ballet.
|
|
|
Julia
Webb (harp) was born in London and
started to study the harp at the age of eight with Marie Goosens. She
went on to study with Sioned Williams and then at the Royal Academy of
Music with Dr Osian Ellis. Whilst there she won the Bennett of Lincoln
Scholarship, the Julia Leney Prize and the Williams Lea Chamber Music
Prize for a performance of Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro and
the British premiere of Hans Werner Henze’s concerto for flute and
harp I Sentimenti.
Julia was principal harp with London City Ballet
for eight years and now pursues a busy freelance career with many of the
country’s orchestras including the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
|
|
|
Gabrielle
Painter (violin) has performed
throughout Europe, Canada and the United States as soloist, chamber
musician and leader. Her recent concerto engagements include
performances of Szymanowski's First Violin Concerto and Lou Harrison's
Violin Concerto in New York and a performance of the Triple Concerto by
Beethoven in Germany, recorded for German National Radio. An
accomplished chamber musician, she has performed in numerous concert
series including the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine Chamber Music
Series (NY), as a Guest Artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts
(Canada), the Miller Theatre (NY) and the Leeds International Concert
Series (UK).
Dedicated to the performance of music of our time, Gabrielle is a
founding member of the New York based furious band, who have premiered
works by composers including David Lang, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and Brian
Cherney.
Gabrielle can be heard with the furious band on CRI and New World
Records.
Gabrielle holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Royal Academy of
Music in London, where she studied with Diana Cummings, a Master of
Music degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook where
she will also receive her Doctorate of Musical Arts Degree in December.
Gabrielle was a scholarship student of and Teaching Assistant to
Mitchell Stern who tragically passed away this year. He is sorely
missed.
Winner of the 2001 Montgomery Violin Competition (United States) her
studies were made possible by awards from the Harold Hyam Wingate
Foundation, the Dorothy Grinstead Memorial Trust and the Thomas
Jefferson Scholarship Awards.
|
|
|
Martin
Pring (conductor & second violin)
has had twenty years experience in the music profession as a violinist,
conductor and composer.
He began conducting whilst studying for his M.Mus at Surrey University
in 1980. In the same year he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Varese
Ensemble. In this capacity he performed many contemporary works and
twentieth century classics and over twenty first performances of works
by young British composers.
In 1985 he made his debut with Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet conducting
Petrushka and was appointed conductor of London City Ballet.
In 1986 he became music director of Dance Advance for which he
composed and arranged several ballet scores and toured widely throughout
the UK, Germany, Spain and China.
For the last five years Martin has enjoyed a close relationship with the
National Chamber Orchestra of Wales conducting contemporary Welsh
works for S4C's The Composers and giving a wide range of concerts
including opera and ballet galas and open-air firework spectaculars,
working with many fine soloists including Sian Cothi, Ros Evans, Alan
Opie and Jason Howard.
Martin has recently featured in Maestros in the Making (broadcast
on Artsworld in April) working with the London Schools
Symphony Orchestra. Future engagements with the orchestra include
two Barbican concerts and a Far East tour, in 2002, conducting works by
Walton, Britten and Maxwell Davies' new Symphony no.8.
Martin's Concerto Grosso No.3 was premiered at the Jardins
Musicaux Festival in Cernier, Switzerland to critical acclaim and he has
just completed Owein's Quest – the first of a set of orchestral
tone-poems based on The Mabinogion.
|
|
|
Jonathan Burnett (violin)
was born in Thirsk. He studied at the Welsh College of Music and Drama
with Dona Lee-Croft. He has toured the Far East with his string quartet
and worked with various orchestras including the BBC National Orchestra
of Wales. He recently toured Wales with Entracte.
|
|
|
Annette
Morgan (viola) comes from
Cambridgeshire and studied at the Royal College of Music with Roger Best
and Frederick Riddle. She pursues a busy career teaching and works with
many orchestras and ensembles in London and elsewhere. Annette has
recently been taking part in English National Ballet’s performances of
Prokofieff’s Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Albert Hall.
|
|
|
Gary Stevens (cello)
was born in Goldalming, Surrey, and studied at the Guildhall School of
Music with Leonard Stehn. In 1982 he was appointed to the post of
sub-principal cello with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Gary is also
principal cello with the Orchestra of English National Ballet.
|
On the pleasant evening of the 23rd June, the Alauna
Ensemble returned to Crwth along with Sally Cathrine Johnson and
Julia Webb. In a full Museum lecture theatre we were treated to the
company of ten highly accomplished musicians. There was a celebratory
party atmosphere come the moment of the final applause.
Not just ten musicians, but also five composers.
Beginning with Joseph-Guy Ropartz (hands up if you’ve ever heard of
him). Born in Brittany in 1864, he was a student of Dubois, Massenet and
Franck. His Prelude, Marine and Chansons is quite delightful
music, wholly French in character. It was a joy to listen to and a
tremendous start to the evening. What followed could not have been more
different. Vaughan Williams’ Three Vocalises sounded like
examination exercises intended by the 85-year-old composer to test the
abilities and coordination of young musicians. The rather angular music,
written for the unlikely combination of voice and clarinet, could have
been hard work for the audience. Fortunately, we were treated to a
scintillating performance by Sally Cathrine Johnson and James Mainwaring
and I have no doubt that VW would have approved.
No sooner had the applause died down when we were
transported back to Gallic lyricism and the magnificent Introduction
et Allegro by Ravel. Almost exactly one hundred years ago, Ravel and
Debussy became involved in commercial rivalry between two harp
manufacturers; Erard and Pleyel. Pleyel had commissioned a piece from
Debussy to show off their new chromatic harp, so Erard, the ‘traditional’
harp makers, replied in kind by commissioning the Introduction et
Allegro. Ravel’s brief was to write a virtuoso piece for the pedal
harp, and he really does go to town in exploring the potential of this
tremendous instrument. Although it is well-known music, it was
fascinating to read about its origins and to hear and see it being
played live. In the hands of Julia Webb and the Alauna Ensemble
we were able to appreciate the enormous range and choice harmonics that
issued from the harp, and the complexities of ensemble playing when
faced with such an ebullient score.
After the interval, Sally returned to the stage,
accompanied by the Alauna Ensemble, to sing de Falla’s sensual
and evocative setting of the poem Psyché. Finally we came to the
first performance of Christopher Weeks’ song cycle Morgensternlieder.
Whereas in Jean Aubry’s poem dear Psyché is dreamily being
urged to rise at the start of a new day, Christian Morgenstern recounts
the games being played in the life of von Korf: setting traps for a
mouse, filling in official forms from the police (‘Yours very
faithfully, and with deepest sympathy regarding the aforementioned
circumstances. Korf’), and inventing slow fuse jokes. Certainly it was
an appropriate and amusing end to the evening’s tour of Europe.
Weeks rises to the challenge of setting Morgenstern’s
nonsense poetry to music. His ability to coordinate voice and
mini-orchestra, and his attention to the detail of intonation and comic
verse, suggests that he should be actively encouraged to develop the
operatic end of his rapidly expanding body of work.
Sally Cathrine Johnson was superb in handling this
testing score. She conveyed all three poems magnificently (‘Und
derweil er konzertiert kommt die Maus hereinspaziert.’) To an
untutored ear it seemed that her intonation, timing and wit could not
have been bettered. Martin Pring conducted and ensured that the ensemble
playing was spot on.
So, as with the slow fuse joke, it is not difficult
to reflect back upon this concert with pleasure. Morgenstern’s line
‘suddenly, in bed at night, they wake up cheerful, smiling blissfully
like a well fed baby’ applies admirably to we the lucky audience.
Subsequently, it was most distressing to hear of the
accidental death a few days later of Sally’s father, Mick Johnson, a
well-known violin-maker. He had travelled to Swansea from Penrith to
hear the concert. Several of us had the pleasure of talking to him as he
helped serve drinks at the interval. It was clear that he was immensely
proud of his daughter’s achievements and had taken great pleasure in
the evening’s performance.
