Welcome to our new website. It’s been a busy start to the year consolidating new projects for Kernow Classics. Although based in Cornwall I take the opportunity whenever possible to visit towns and cities ‘up country’ delivering talks to Recorded Music Societies and other music groups; over the years I have established friendly relationships with societies as far away as York and Leicester in addition to those in Stroud, Cirencester, Bournemouth and Torquay which are rather closer to home.
Initially I offered just the one talk on Emmanuel Chabrier, the composer with whom I have become most closely associated. And because I believe in providing audiences with something more than just a simple talk, as an ‘extra’ I recreate his astonishing collection of impressionist paintings on cards around the room as well as photographs and portraits depicting his domestic life and illustrations of operatic production from Chabrier’s time to the present day. It’s started something of a precedent and audiences for my talks now expect similar additional detail which of course I am happy to provide.
Since my first talk on Chabrier, each year I’ve added a different subject drawn from my other areas of expertise: George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Music in Germany between the wars, Eduard Künneke, and the Mozart-Da Ponte operas. This year’s new subject is Albert Lortzing, a composer close to my heart since my early years when my opera-mad uncle gave me each Christmas a singer recital or a highlights LP featuring this delightful, highly talented but shamefully neglected (in the UK at any rate) composer. My first Lortzing talk will take place in Leicester on 8 November 2016 and more will follow in Torquay (1 February 2017) and York (date to be confirmed).
If any of this sounds interesting for your society or group, please do get in touch and I can tailor something for you to suit. You can contact me here.
Other plans this year include furthering my research on the German operetta composer Eduard Künneke and his fascinating daughter Evelyn (a complete discography for Eduard that I have been compiling over the last year or so is more or less complete) and on researching into singers connected with the opera in Berlin and Vienna throughout the twentieth century.
Blogs will appear regularly on a variety of musical subjects (the stormy “fliegende Holländer” weather we have been experiencing in Cornwall in the shape of Storm Imogen gives me an idea!) and of course comments are welcome.
Initially I offered just the one talk on Emmanuel Chabrier, the composer with whom I have become most closely associated. And because I believe in providing audiences with something more than just a simple talk, as an ‘extra’ I recreate his astonishing collection of impressionist paintings on cards around the room as well as photographs and portraits depicting his domestic life and illustrations of operatic production from Chabrier’s time to the present day. It’s started something of a precedent and audiences for my talks now expect similar additional detail which of course I am happy to provide.
Since my first talk on Chabrier, each year I’ve added a different subject drawn from my other areas of expertise: George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Music in Germany between the wars, Eduard Künneke, and the Mozart-Da Ponte operas. This year’s new subject is Albert Lortzing, a composer close to my heart since my early years when my opera-mad uncle gave me each Christmas a singer recital or a highlights LP featuring this delightful, highly talented but shamefully neglected (in the UK at any rate) composer. My first Lortzing talk will take place in Leicester on 8 November 2016 and more will follow in Torquay (1 February 2017) and York (date to be confirmed).
If any of this sounds interesting for your society or group, please do get in touch and I can tailor something for you to suit. You can contact me here.
Other plans this year include furthering my research on the German operetta composer Eduard Künneke and his fascinating daughter Evelyn (a complete discography for Eduard that I have been compiling over the last year or so is more or less complete) and on researching into singers connected with the opera in Berlin and Vienna throughout the twentieth century.
Blogs will appear regularly on a variety of musical subjects (the stormy “fliegende Holländer” weather we have been experiencing in Cornwall in the shape of Storm Imogen gives me an idea!) and of course comments are welcome.
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