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Funtington Music Group |
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FMG Annual Review 2010The group was pleased in February to welcome back Daniel Snowman, author and broadcaster, for a talk on the social and cultural history of opera. An experienced and most engaging lecturer, Daniel interspersed his thoughtful and witty remarks with vivid slides and some delightful musical excerpts. Daniel is a showman in his own right, and his audience felt highly entertained by his talk, which gave us an insight into the world of opera drawn from a rather different perspective. The Funtington Music Group’s Spring Concert in March, as always at the University of Chichester, heard Lynden Cranham [cello] and Richard Barnes [harpsichord and piano] describe and illustrate the development of the cello. Lynden Cranham is a specialist in historical performance and has toured all over the world with England’s major period instrument orchestras, whereas Richard Barnes is an expert lecturer and accomplished pianist. Playing pieces composed in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries they both enthused the audience with their witty and fascinating descriptions before going on to play pieces on a variety of different instruments. The Seventh Annual Chichester University Student Showcase Concert, sponsored by the Funtington Music Group, was the next concert which took place on the 21 April. Selected originally from 26 students, six gifted finalists competed for the coveted Robert Headley Annual Music Awards. Laura Ritchie, University Senior Tutor, who had helped organize the evening, explained that “the popularity of the event was due to the students valuing the opportunity to perform in front of such a receptive audience.” Lisa Smith, the independent adjudicator, and Head of Music at Chichester College, concluded the evening choosing Jasmine Selby as the winner of the £500.00 first prize, with Jonathan Duffy second and Kate Harris third. All the musicians received a share of the £1000 prize pot and Lisa Smith said, “It was a pleasure to hear such a talented group of musicians.” David Tinsley, Chairman of the Funtington Music Group said, “This was a wonderful evening. The University can be proud of its music students and the ever-improving standard of their playing.” Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Clive Behagg, presented the prizes, congratulated the performers and finally thanked the Funtington Music Group for their generosity in providing £13,000 in prizes and awards to students over the past seven years. Funtington Music Group was then treated in May to an evening of wonderful music by students from the University of Chichester, under their conductor Arthur Robson. This was the second in a series of illustrated talks on the history of European choral music, which this time concentrated on the baroque period of the 17th and 18th Centuries. The concert began with the University Chamber Choir singing the funeral music for Queen Mary, written in 1694, accompanied by drums and trumpets, which gave the performance a most authentic atmosphere. This was followed by three shorter pieces by Monteverdi, Purcell and Lotti, performed by the Otter Consort. This smaller choir has just 18 voices, and their presentation of Lotti’s Crucifixus, a most challenging piece in eight parts, was exquisite. No walk through the music of this period would be complete without a piece by Bach, and Arthur used the second half to perform extracts from both his Magnificat and that written by Vivaldi. The Chamber choir performed both works with great musicianship. Particular congratulations to Katie Alder (soprano), Toby Forster (counter-tenor), Josh Roe (tenor) and Christopher Davies (bass) who took on the nerve-racking task of singing the solo parts with great maturity and poise. The concert ended with a joyful rendition of Handel’s ever popular Zadok the Priest. Though only created four years ago, in 2006, and having performed at such internationally renowned venues as Wigmore Hall and the newest in London – the astounding Kings Place – the highly-praised chamber group, known as The Cavell Quartet, became the focus of Funtington Music Group’s splendid annual occasion – the Summer Buffet Concert in June. All four, highly responsive, musicians merged their individual abilities perfectly to convey the lyrical melody and variable rhythm of Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet No. 2. Just before the interval came another, enthralling, string quartet, composed by Felix Mendelssohn, a short time before his death, in 1847. This, highly idiosyncratic, work was energetically illustrated by all four musicians, as they combined to express its extremely distinctive – often inventive – musical style. They concluded their evening’s performance with an intriguing – occasionally intense – string quartet, the first of Beethoven’s 16 similar works. The Square on the Hippopotamus was the strange title of the September concert. The dynamic trumpet-player, Mark Kesel, had set up a table to display many fascinating items within the trumpet range, accompanied by pianist, lan Westley, They both eagerly introduced everyone to the trumpet world by means of Hungarian Chan by Rafael Mondez. After demonstrating the basic ‘buzz’ ,with a green hosepipe, funnel and mouthpiece, Mark Kesel then moved onto his piccolo trumpet with a brief, tuneful work by Charpentier, which attracted the whole-audience. Starting the second half with a tuneful, rhythmic, work by the more modern composer, Martinu, they both then moved on to the familiar and extremely popular One Enchanted Evening, by Richard Rodgers. Two meetings were held in October because the regular meeting was followed two weeks later by the rescheduled January meeting which had been cancelled because of bad weather. First we heard from the distinguished broadcaster Humphrey Burton who gave us an illustrated presentation entitled ‘Confessions of a Canary Fancier’. He talked about and showed video clips of the famous singers with whom he had worked during his long career with the BBC. After a fascinating talk, full of anecdotes, personal recollections and musical examples of his preferred canaries, Humphrey Burton challenged the audience of FMG Members and Guests to complete a questionnaire by listing their top three canaries in order from a list of fifteen Great Singers of the World. Fifty questionnaires were completed and a preliminary result was announced at the end of the presentation, the top scorer being Janet Baker as the preferred canary. Jonathan Little’s postponed illustrated talk gave us a fascinating introduction to the work of a composer. Born in Australia, Jonathan soon became a chorister and percussion enthusiast before moving to England where he has worked for six years with the Chichester University Music Department. His slides and recorded excerpts intrigued the enthusiastic audience, many of whom had never considered the immense work involved in moving an initial musical idea towards a published and recorded work. Jonathan’s passion for nature, art, colour and impressionism, particularly Debussy, had inspired him to compose a great deal of music, much of it motivated by his fascination with modern percussion instruments and ethereal combinations of wind instruments. He explained how he prepared a score and outlined the problems involved in financing a performance or studio recording. All members of the audience were given a CD of Jonathan’s latest compositions, many recorded in Eastern Europe where the cost of session musicians is much less than in the UK. Funtington Music Group was treated to a very unusual concert in November by “The Rare Theatricall”, a small group who specialise in early baroque music using authentic instruments of the period: on this occasion baroque violin, Caroline Ritchie, viola da gamba, Bojan Čičič, violin and Christopher Bucknall, harpsichord. There was much interest in the viola da gamba, a precursor of the cello but with six strings, frets on the finger board and no supporting spike, requiring the instrument to be played held between the knees. The soft and sweet tone of the instruments was so unlike the heavier sound made by their successors today. The players took turns to introduce the pieces, giving the audience valuable insight into their historical and cultural background during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Many of the works were inspired by Italian composers experimenting with creating music for instruments playing on their own for the first time, rather than just accompanying choral pieces. |
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