Homage to Pavel Haas
26th May 2015, 7.30 pm, Milton Court Concert Hall Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
1 Milton Street, Barbican, London EC2Y 9BH.
Concert
A unique concert will take place on the 26th of May at 7. 30pm, at the outstanding new London concert venue Milton Court Hall Concert Hall. Hosted by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and directed and organised by pianist and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama professor Lada Valešová, the concert aims to celebrate music and life of the Czech composer Pavel Haas.
The evening will present the London audience with the UK premiere of Haas’s youthful chamber music piece Fata Morgana, a composition inspired by the love poems of Rabindranath Tagore. The programme also includes Haas’s seminal song cycles: the Four Songs on Chinese Poetry, which he composed in Terezín, as well as earlier song cycles characterised by their connections to the Moravian folk melodies and jazzy rhythms, as well as composer’s early interest in Chinese poetry, to which he returned at the final chapter of his life.
Performed by a stellar group of young talents under direction of Valešová, who will perform all piano parts, this promises to be a one-off opportunity to hear music by Pavel Haas in the lovingly crafted evening.
Pavel Haas (21 June 1899 – 17 October 1944) was a Czech-Jewish composer, pupil of Leoš Janáček, who perished in Auschwitz after spending nearly three years of detention in the Terezín. Family of the Brno shoe merchant Zikmund Haas has given Czech culture two important artists: composer Pavel and his brother Hugo: one of the most beloved actors of the pre-war Czech cinema.
" Haas, as the only one in the group around Janáček begins his composition career already in the conditions of the new Czechoslovak state, in the atmosphere of unprecedented influences from the new impulses of the contemporary musical world. So it is not a surprise that more than his older colleagues Haas loosens the ties with the tradition and becomes an enthusiastic believer in the new directions, the most experimenting, the bravest “Janáčkian”. None of Janáček’s pupils stand as close to their master as Pavel Haas. Haas is not a follower, but a true successor: through Janáček he is connected to the tradition of the Czech music, but with his entire being he is drawn somewhere else than Janáček, and becomes a link between him and the modern Western European music.”
Lubomír Peluzzi, musicologist, Haas’s biographer.
Programme
Fata Morgana Op. 6
UK premiere.
Piano Quintet with tenor solo on poems by Rabindranath Tagore.
Nicky Spence tenor
Jubilee Quartet
Lada Valešová piano
Seven Song on Slovak Folk Poetry for high voice and piano Op. 18
Poems by Čelakovský
Anita Watson soprano
Lada Valešová piano
Chinese songs for alto and piano Op. 4
Anna Starushkevych mezzo soprano
Lada Valešová piano
Four Songs on Chinese Poetry for bass and piano (1944)
James Platt bass
Lada Valešová piano
Performers
Nicky Spence, tenor: hailed recently by the Daily Telegraph as ‘a voice of real distinction’, Nicky Spence is fast emerging as one of ‘our finest young singers’. An artist of great integrity, Nicky’s unique skills as a singing actor and the rare honesty in his musicianship are steadfastly earning him a place at the top of the profession. Highlights of the 2014-15 season include David in The Mastersingers of Nuremberg at the English National Opera with Music Director Edward Gardner, a Rossini double bill at Welsh National Opera as Rodolphe in Guillaume Tell and Mambre in Mosè in Egitto with Carlo Rizzi, and Francesco in Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini at De Nederlandse Opera under Sir Mark Elder. Concerts include recitals with Roger Vignoles, Malcolm Martineau, and The Allegri Quartet and performances of Handel with Tromsø Chamber Orchestra, a new work by Jonathan Dove with the Oxford Bach Choir, and Tippett’s A Child of Our Time with the Auckland Philharmonia in New Zealand. Nicky Spence also performs in concert at the Barbican, the Purcell Room, and Birmingham Symphony Hall.
Anita Watson, soprano: alumni of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the ROH, Covent Garden, Australian soprano Anita Watson is a winner of numerous international singing competitions amongst them the Australian Singing Competition, the “Queen Sonja International Music Competition” in Oslo, “Neue Stimmen” in Germany and the Plácido Domingo “Operalia” competition. In 2009 she was awarded the 1st prize and the audience award at the international “ARD Music Competition” in Munich and the “SWR Emmerich-Smola Prize” in 2010. She has made her debuts in Opera houses such as La Fenice, Royal Opera House, Welsh National Opera and Opera Australia, Sydney. She has performed at the BBC Proms and at the Salzburg Festival. Recent and upcoming engagements include FIrst Lady (Die Zauberflöte) for the Royal Opera House, Flowermaiden (BBC Proms), Mimì (La Bohème) for Opera North, Governess (The Turn of the Screw) for Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse, Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) for Welsh National Opera and Anne Trulove (The Rake’s Progress) for Teatro Municipal de Santiago.
Anna Starushkevych, mezo-soprano: Ukrainian-born graduate of the GSMD Opera Course, Anna is already earning acclaim for her rich vocal timbre delivered in tandem with an intense and engaging performance persona. She has recently graduated from the International Opera Course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, studying with Laura Sarti. She now also has the privilege of working on her repertoire with Dennis O’Neill and Teresa Berganza.
Anna is the first mezzo-soprano to win the Handel Singing Competition 2012 in London, taking the first prize (the Adair Prize), the Audience Prize and the York Early Music Prize. This followed winning the Susan Longfield Award and third prize in the Jackdaws Vocal Award at the Wigmore Hall in 2010. She returned to the Wigmore Hall to perform the role of St Mary Cleophas in Handel’s La Resurrezione for the Handel Festival 2013. Future engagements include the role of Rosimonda in Handel’s Faramondo for the Brisbane Baroque Festival 2015 and Ofelia in Salieri's La grotta di Trofonio for the Bampton Classical Opera 2015.
James Platt, bass: British bass James Platt was educated at Chetham’s School of Music studied at the Royal Academy of Music and on the Opera Course of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. A member of the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden his roles there this season include Charon Orfeo, Dr Grenvil La traviata and Blansac in Rossini's La scala di Seta. He has been a Jerwood Young Artist at Glyndebourne where he sang the role of Notary Don Pasquale and covered Mr Flint Billy Budd in the 2013 Festival. He recently made his debut with the Welsh National Opera as High priest of Baal Nabucco. His concert and recital appearances include Glyndebourne’s Ebert Room Recital Series, the Brighton Festival, Bridgewater Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Christ Church Spitalfields and Barbican Hall. Conductors with whom he has worked include Valery Gergiev, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Andrew Davis, Paul McCreesh, Laurence Cummings and Sir Mark Elder.
The Jubilee String Quartet: young and upcoming string quartet under the leadership of Czech violinist Tereza Přívratská was formed in 2006 at the Royal Academy of Music, London. Quartet claim number of important successes to their name: first prize winners of the Val Tidone International Chamber Music Competition 2010 and the St Martin’s Chamber Music Competition 2013, Second prize winners of the Karol Szymanowski International String Quartet Competition 2014, and third prize winners of the Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition 2013. They held a Leverhulme Chamber Music Fellowship at the Academy in 2012-13, the Richard Carne Junior Fellowship at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in 2013-14.
Lada Valešová: pianist and GSMD professor Lada Valešová has impressed reviewers with her recordings of Czech and Slavic music on Avie Records label, Intimate Studies and Dumka. “ You have to take your hat off to someone who can plan a recital CD with the imaginative insight of investigative musicologist and then execute it with such musicianly sensitivity.... ” declared the International Piano. She continues her musical and musicological explorations with the in-depth programme of music by Pavel Haas: composer, who’s music she admires. She has performed internationally, and in the UK in venues such as Wigmore Hall, St. John’s Smith Square, Royal Opera House, as well as at the number of International Music Festivals.
Lada Valešová seeks and creates projects “off the beaten track...distinguished by inspired and modern interpretation ”, as observed by the music magazine Diapason.
Booking
Admission is free, but we would like to ask you to kindly book your place using the form bellow. Thank you.
CD recording project
After the concert takes its place, the second part of the Homage to Pavel Haas project will be recording of the CD with the programme of the concert.
We are currently seeking sponsors and would greatly appreciate your support. Should you wish to sponsor the recording, please contact Lada Valešová on ladavalesova@gmail.com for more information about the recording, as well as how to make a donation. Thank you!