 What's On
Welcome to the Spring 2013 Concert Season at the University of Sheffield. This Spring we launch a citywide initiative to celebrate the centenary of the composer Benjamin Britten. Featuring concerts, spoken word events, films, musical theatre productions and outreach and education programmes, the ‘A Boy Was Born’ Festival aims to encourage performance of Britten’s music throughout the centenary year and to promote better understanding of his life and work as composer and musical innovator. Alongside a plethora of concert performances from our civic partners, it is a huge privilege to be able to invite artists of the highest international standing to the University this spring. The Chilingirian Quartet open the festival with an outstanding programme featuring hauntingly beautiful works by Britten, Schubert and Shostakovich; We include a talk from former Director of the Wigmore Hall and author of the new definitive Britten biography Paul Kildea; The Phoenix Piano Trio perform Beethoven’s irresistible Ghost Trio alongside works by John Ireland; Critically acclaimed soprano Joan Rodgers CBE performs Britten’s mesmerising settings of Pushkin in The Poet’s Echo; The Sacconi Quartet presents Britten’s homage to Purcell and a landmark work by Haydn the ‘father of the string quartet’; and world-renowned cellist Natalie Clein performs evocative and expressive works by Beethoven and Britten. A separate publicity guide for the festival is available and can be requested from the festival website www.aboywasborn.co.uk
Elsewhere in the series Sheffield based jazz singer Rosie Brown presents a new programme of music inspired by the singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. Best known for hit songs such as ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, Rosie and her band explore Joni Mitchell’s life and career, the joys and trials and the conflicts with fame of this all too human musical icon. Later on in the season our students star in Goldilocks, a musical parody of the silent film era. Not to be confused with the famous Children's story of the same name, this rarely performed sparkling adult comedy features witty, unforgettable songs and a dazzling score composed by Leroy Anderson. Finally Sheffield University Salon Orchestra return to screen another silent film with live orchestral accompaniment. Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush sees Chaplin’s most memorable character ‘the tramp’ travel to the Klondike, Canada in search of gold. The film Chaplin himself said he wanted to be remembered for is an epic slapstick comedy, packed full of outstanding gags, romance and heartbreak.
I look forward to welcoming you to our concerts this Spring! Stewart Campbell |
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Concerts
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Welcome to the Spring 2013 Concert Season at the University of Sheffield.