A Poet’s Love

 

Thursday 14.9.17 7.30pm St Thomas Church, Lymington

  Programme BEETHOVEN An die ferne Geliebte SCHUMANN Papillions CHOPIN Polonaise No. 5 in F sharp minor Interval MENDELSSOHN Andante and Rondo Capriccioso SCHUMANN Dichterliebe Mark Padmore, tenor Sam Haywood, piano  

“…Mark Padmore’s tenor caught on prime form. Such pleasing timbre, such luminous diction, such sensitivity to word and phrase, such restraint but also strength…I do not think the latest version can be bettered.”

Piers Burton-Page International Record Review

We are delighted to welcome Mark Padmore back to the Solent Music Festival, this time with Beethoven’s only song cycle, the precursor to a series of followers, notably Schubert and Schumann. Sam Haywood will also be performing solo piano works by Schumann, Chopin and Mendelssohn. Mark Padmore is kindly sponsored by Global Telecommunications

Mark Padmore

Mark Padmore was born in London and grew up in Canterbury. After beginning his musical studies on the clarinet he gained a choral scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge and graduated with an honours degree in music. He has established an international career in opera, concert and recital. His appearances in Bach Passions have gained particular notice especially his acclaimed performances as Evangelist in the St Matthew and St John Passions with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle, staged by Peter Sellars, including Berlin, Salzburg, New York and the BBC Proms. In the opera house Mark has worked with directors Peter Brook, Katie Mitchell, Mark Morris and Deborah Warner. Recent work includes the leading roles in Harrison Birtwistle The Corridor and The Cure at the Aldeburgh Festival and Linbury Theatre, Covent Garden; Handel Jephtha for WNO and ENO, Captain Vere in Britten Billy Budd and Evangelist in a staging of St Matthew Passion for Glyndebourne Festival Opera. He also played Peter Quint in an acclaimed BBC TV production of Britten The Turn of the Screw and recorded the title role in La Clemenza di Tito with René Jacobs for Harmonia Mundi. Future roles include Third Angel/John in George Benjamin Written on Skin with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. In concert he has performed with the world’s leading orchestras including the Bavarian Radio and London Symphony Orchestras, Berlin, Vienna, New York and London Philharmonic Orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Philharmonia. He makes regular appearances with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with whom he has conceived projects exploring both Bach St John and St Matthew Passions. Mark has given recitals worldwide. He has performed the three Schubert song cycles in London, Liverpool, Paris, Tokyo, Vienna and New York as well as at the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg. Regular recital partners include Kristian Bezuidenhout, Jonathan Biss, Imogen Cooper, Julius Drake, Till Fellner, Simon Lepper, Paul Lewis, Roger Vignoles and Andrew West. Composers who have written for him include Sally Beamish, Harrison Birtwistle, Jonathan Dove, Thomas Larcher, Nico Muhly, Alec Roth, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Huw Watkins, Ryan Wigglesworth and Hans Zender. His extensive discography include recent releases: Beethoven Missa Solemnis and Haydn Die Schöpfung with Bernard Haitink and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra on BR Klassik and lieder by Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart with Kristian Bezuidenhout for Harmonia Mundi. Other Harmonia Mundi recordings include Handel arias As Steals the Morn with the English Concert (BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award); Schubert cycles with Paul Lewis (Winterreise won the 2010 Gramophone magazine Vocal Award); Schumann Dichterliebe with Kristian Bezuidenhout (2011 Edison Klassiek Award) and Britten Serenade, Nocturne and Finzi Dies Natalis with the Britten Sinfonia (ECHO/Klassik 2013 award); The staged St Matthew Passion with the Berlin Philharmonic and Rattle was awarded the BBC Music Magazine 2013 DVD Award. Mark was voted 2016 Vocalist of the Year by Musical America and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Kent University in 2014. Mark is Artistic Director of the St. Endellion Summer Music Festival in Cornwall.  

Sam Haywood

Sam Haywood has performed to critical acclaim in many of the world’s major concert halls. The Washington Post hailed his ‘dazzling, evocative playing’ and ‘lyrical sensitivity’ and the New York Times his ‘’passionate flair and sparkling clarity’. He embraces a wide spectrum of the piano repertoire and is equally at home as a soloist, chamber musician or with accompanying Lieder. He has had a regular duo partnership with Joshua Bell since 2010 and also often performs with cellist Steven Isserlis.
He has recorded two solo albums for Hyperion, one featuring the piano music of Julius Isserlis (grandfather of Steven Isserlis) and the other Charles Villiers Stanford’s preludes. He is passionate about period instruments and has made a recording on Chopin’s own Pleyel piano. In 2013 Haywood co-founded Solent Music Festival in UK. The annual Lymington-based festival features highly varied programmes by internationally-renowned artists with projects in the local community. Artists have included the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Alina Ibragimova, Mark Padmore and the Endellion Quartet. He was mentored by David Hartigan, Paul Badura-Skoda and Maria Curcio. Following his early success in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, the Royal Philharmonic Society awarded him the Julius Isserlis Scholarship. He studied both at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, of which he is an associate (ARAM). Haywood enjoys working with young musicians. He has written a children’s opera and is regularly involved in family concerts, workshops and master classes. His ‘Song of the Penguins’ for bassoon and piano, is published by Emerson Editions. He is also the inventor of memorystars® which can significantly reduce the time needed to memorise a music score, or indeed any printed text. Other passions include literature, physics, natural history, technology, magic, fountain pens and table tennis. samhaywood.com