Chopin the Poet

Tuesday 21 Sept 2021 | 7.30pm
St Thomas Church, Lymington

Programme

CHOPIN Songs Op. 74
Życzenie
Wiosna
Smutna rzeka
Hulanka
Gdzie lubi
Śliczny chłopiec
Moja pieszczotka
Wojak

CHOPIN Sonata in B flat minor Op. 35 (Funeral March)

Interval

CHOPIN Etudes Op. 25 No. 10-12
MOZART Ach, Ich fuhl’s (The Magic Flute)
ROSSINI Una voce poco fa (The Barber of Seville)
PUCCINI O mio babbino caro (Gianni Schicchi), Quando m’en vo (La bohème)
VERDI Sempre libera (La traviata)

Ilona Domnich, soprano
Sam Haywood, piano

Ilona Domnich

Originally a pianist, Ilona was plucked by a legendary singing teacher Vera Rosza at one of the master classes. She went on to win the prestigious Wingate Scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music. Her career is growing steadily world-wide.

Operatic highlights include Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Mimi (La Boheme), Gilda (Rigoletto), Olympia/Antonia/Giulietta (Tales of Hoffmann), Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), (Fortunio), Elle (La Voix Humaine), Melisande (Pellease et Melisande), Magda (La Rondine), Tatyana (Onegin), Zerlina( Don Giovanni), Eurydice (Der neue Orpheus), Venus (Judgement of Paris), Madam Herz (Der Schauspieldirektor), Blondchen (Die Entfuhrung).

Ilona developed close collaboration with English National Opera, BBC Concert Orchestra, Grange Park Opera, Buxton Opera Festival, English Touring Opera, Northern Sinfonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Concert Orchestra, Southbank Sinfonia, Festival de Musique de Menton, Trasimeno Music Festival and Anghiari in Italy, Chopin Festival in Mallorca, Aldeburgh Festival, London Song Festival, Jersey International Festival.

Ilona appeared in concerts in London at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Barbican, Westminster Cathedral, St. Johns’ Smith square, St. Martin in the Fields and internationally in Paris, Menton, Segura, Rome, St.Peterburg, Jerusalem, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka.

Ilona’s fruitful collaboration with Southbank Sinfonia and Simon Over, with whom she has performed the Brahms requiem, Mendelssohn ‘Lobgesang’, Ravel Scheherazade, Gounod ‘ Missa sollemnis’ and the roles of Tatyana and Gilda, led to the creation of an Operatic CD ‘Surrender’ with the baritone Leo Nucci, recorded and produced by Rupert Coulson is released by Signum Classics.

Ilona’s teachers: Vera Rosza, Enid Hartle, Joan Rodgers, Susan Roberts, Montserrat Caballe  and Ludmila Andrew.

Recent performances : the Role of Glauce in Medea, Concert with Angela Hewitt in Trasimeno, concerts with Martin Yates and Charles Mutter at Aujols, Poulenc Gloria at Notre dame de Paris, international woman’s day concert live on BBC 3 with BBCCO, Brahms requiem, Chant d’Auvergne, a recording of R.V.Williams ‘The Scott of Antarctic’ with Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Ravel Shaharezade with St. Petersburg Philharmonic, ‘The Mystic Trumpeter with BBCCO, Viennese opera concert with CBSO, Beethoven 9th and recitals with Benjamin Frith, Sholto Kynoch in Oxford, London and Leeds.

Ilona has developed and performed a one woman show – based on songs sung by Marlene Dietrich, Jacques Brell and Edith Piaf with James Bonas director.

Future plans include: Recitals at the Wigmore Hall with Linus Roth, Four Last Songs in Cardiff, Mystic Trumpeter (Holst) with Three Choir Festival, Kurt Weill- Marie Galante with Martin Yates, Rossini -Petite messe solennelle in Oxford, Oxford Lieder festival with Sholto Kynoch, War Requiem at Coventry cathedral, ‘Voix du Cabaret’ tour, Brahms requiem, concerts with Gould piano trio in Tenerife, Concert with Alexander Melnikov in Finland, Linus Roth in Gohrisch, concerts at Usher hall and Royal Glasgow Hall and a recording with Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Martin Yates. Recital at Bob Boas house and in Devon. Faure songs at Dorchester abbey with OSJ.

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 or chamber musician, using modern or period instruments. 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. His passion for period instruments led to a recording on Chopin’s own Pleyel piano, part of the Cobbe Collection.

In 2013 Haywood co-founded Solent Music Festival in UK. The annual Lymington-based festival features highly varied programmes and projects in the local community. Guest artists have included the King’s Singers, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Steven Isserlis, Anthony Marwood, Michael Portillo, Mark Padmore and the Elias 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).

As a composer Haywood has written several miniatures for piano. ‘The Other Side’ was recently premiered in the Konzerthaus in Vienna and the ‘Song of the Penguins’, dedicated to Roger Birnstingl, is published by Emerson Editions. His invention ‘memorystars®’ can significantly reduce the time needed to memorise a music score. His other passions include literature, physics, natural history, technology, magic, fountain pens and table tennis. Originally from the English Lake District, he now lives in Kent with his wife Sophia, their young son James and cockapoo Poppy.