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Funtington Music Group |
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FUNTINGTON MUSIC GROUP: Funtington Music Group has just completed another stimulating season at the Chapel of The Ascension, in the centre of the University of Chichester’s Bishop Otter Campus. Whilst the 2006 programme included return visits of some of their old favourites, it also featured several highly gifted artists and well-known professional groups who presented a most agreeable, and truly enlightening, range of concerts, recitals and illustrated lectures, offered to members in a the most welcoming and sociable environment. The new season instantly moved in to top gear in January, when the well-known pianist and conductor, Christopher Gayford, and his colleague, the dynamic concert violinist, Martin Cropper, presented an intriguing analysis of Beethoven’s legendary Kreuzer Sonata, followed by a highly charged performance of the masterpiece which was praised by Chairman, David Tinsley, for its emotional commitment, enabling us to appreciate the depth and soul of the music. In February, the Group welcomed Dimension, a highly distinctive violin, cello and piano trio, whose passionate musical priorities were revealed during their pre-concert talk, introduced by the Secretary, John Wheatley. Immediately after this opening session, the Trio gave commanding performances of Shostakovitch’s intense Second Trio and Tchaikovsky’s beautiful late nineteenth-century Trio in A Minor. After the Annual General Meeting in March, the Group was entertained by Head of Music, Ben Hall, and his cellist colleague, Laura Ritchie. In the first half, Ben explained, in his usual entertaining way, the strange circumstances leading to the discovery of the University’s Steinway Centennial concert grand piano and then startled the members with an astonishing performance of Balakirev’s wild piano essay, Islamey, to be joined later by Laura in some lovely Brahms and Rachmaninov. Such concerts as these spring from the mutually rewarding and now swiftly developing partnership between the Group and the University, a relationship which has been even further enhanced by the Student Showcase Concert competition, now a part of the April tradition. This year, from the six talented students who were enthusiastically competing for the third annual Robert Headley Music Prize, the £500 first prize was awarded to the incredibly gifted young pianist, James Church. As accustomed, Jonathan Hinden’s unique some may even deem it to be occasionally eccentric “ presentation of what Mozart called his jolly opera, Don Giovanni, delighted the packed Chapel audience in May, guaranteeing a return engagement in 2007. It’s a long-held tradition that the Group’s Summer Evening Concert should represent the high point of the season. This year the Alibas Trio graced the occasion, when three of London’s most revered musicians Nigel Clayton (piano), Leonid Gorokhov (cello) and Michael Cox (flute), played a supremely attractive and varied programme of traditional classical music, plus some distinctly adventurous, more modern, pieces by Jean-Michel Damase, Bohuslav Martinu and George Gershwin. With Gershwin’s Song Medley still very much in mind, a good-sized September audience attended Anthony Burton’s fascinating lecture, entitled The Jazz Influence. The well known BBC broadcaster and writer illustrated his subject with many convincing examples of serious music from American, European and Japanese composers who simply could not resist the hypnotising power of jazz and ragtime. The October and November concerts were devoted to more personal and unforgettable forms of musical expression, the solo song with piano accompaniment. Terry Barfoot is a familiar figure in the musical life of Southern England and particularly to Funtington Music Group. In October, he linked up with two other well-known characters, Elizabeth Brooks (piano) and Paul Mead (tenor), to present the first of two meetings concentrating on lieder by Beethoven, Schumann and, above all, Schubert. This was a truly breathtaking recital of three major song-cycles which were linked with some revealing stories of the composers’ lives and creative ambitions. The limelight then turned on to Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, when Peter Rhodes (piano) and Aidan Smith (bass), graphically demonstrated just how the composer’s tragic personal situation had been transformed into such disturbingly beautiful music, one year before his premature death in 1828. As ever, FMG had engaged one of the most entertaining groups in England for their Christmas Cabaret concert. The Bibby Piano Duo and the radio, television and theatre actress, Carole Boyd, who had joined forces six years ago as Infinite Riches, took the performance of words and music into an entirely fresh direction. This Christmas recital proved to be not only thought-provoking, but incredibly hilarious, a truly uplifting end to a remarkable season and a wonderful introduction to the Christmas festivities. John Wheatley |
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