Death and the Semitone

Death and the Semitone

by | Feb 27, 2017 | News & Ideas

‘For we shall be hereafter as though we had never been’. Cheery thoughts from Solomon, he of the Ecclesiastes quote, ‘Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless!’ One could imagine that in a song-cycle with a title such as Songs of Loss and Regret, these...
Afterglow of a Instant Classic

Afterglow of a Instant Classic

by | Oct 27, 2016 | News & Ideas

‘Music, when soft voices die…vibrates in the memory’ (Percy Shelley) Two days after the recording and premiere of Jane Eyre with David Stout, Mark Milhofer, Gwion Thomas, Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestra, these lines by Shelley capture my sensations,...
Role as Relationship

Role as Relationship

by | Oct 20, 2016 | News & Ideas

Geography Learning a role is a bit like beginning a relationship. First comes the general geography: name, family, hometown, education. The parallel is the musical geography: how many scenes am I in? Have I highlighted all my lines? Have I marked in the next page...
Lines in the Sand

Lines in the Sand

by | Oct 19, 2016 | News & Ideas

Having just prepared a large chunk of Ilia from Mozart’s Idomeno with the lovely Kensington Chamber Orchestra, I have been pondering the different demands of singing in Italian and English. Though everyone is always telling me that Italian is easier to sing in,...