Michael Collins & Friends
Michael Collins clarinet | Corey Cerovsek and Akiko Ono violins | Rachel Roberts viola | Steffan Morris cello | Michael McHale piano
Stravinsky The Soldier’s Tale: Suite
Robin Holloway Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano Op 79
Bartók Contrasts
Prokofiev Overture on Hebrew Themes Op 34
Shostakovich Piano Quintet in G minor Op 57
Michael Collins is joined for the evening concert by three more friends – Rachel Roberts who is a regular visitor with Ensemble 360, plus the Canadian violinist Corey Cerovsek and Japanese violinist Akiko Ono – and they bring a programme which is true Festival fare. It includes another work by Robin Holloway, premièred by Emma Johnson in Malvern in 1994. Stravinsky effectively left Russia before World War One and wrote The Soldier’s Tale in Switzerland. Bartók left Hungary in 1940 for America where he composed Contrasts for Benny Goodman. Prokofiev, who was born in Ukraine, spent fifteen years in the USA and France before returning to Russia in 1933. He suffered, like Shostakovich, from the ideological demands of Communism but wrote many great scores. Shostakovich was eventually allowed to travel out of the USSR and his reputation has grown over the last fifty years. His Piano Quintet written in 1940 is a powerful masterpiece.
£26 | £16
(£1 children / students)
Leonore Piano Trio
Benjamin Nabarro violin | Gemma Rosefield cello | Tim Horton piano
Rachmaninov Trio élégiaque No 1 in G minor
Arensky Piano Trio No 1 in D minor Op 32
Tchaikovsky Piano Trio in A minor Op 50 ‘In Memory of a Great Artist’
The Leonore Piano Trio has become one of the firm Festival favourites for our audience. Established in 2012, the Trio appears regularly at the Wigmore Hall and other major venues, and their recordings – as with the two Piano Trios by Arensky – are highly praised.
The 2023 Festival is launched with an early work of 1892 by Rachmaninov, and his other monumental Trio (of 1907) features in the lunchtime concert on Monday. Arensky’s First Piano Trio (1894) was dedicated to the celebrated Russian cellist Karl Davidoff, and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio (1881-2) was written in memory of his great mentor, Nikolai Rubinstein.
Concert generously supported by Peter Robinson in memory of Gillian
£26 | £16
(£1 children / students)
James Pillai horn, Benjamin Nabarro and Claudia Ajmone-Marsan violins,
Rachel Roberts viola, Gemma Rosefield cello, Elena Hull double bass, Tim Horton piano
Howard Skempton Man and Bat
Howard Skempton The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Howard Skempton’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was first performed by Roderick Williams with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and then taken on by him and Ensemble 360 for performances in Sheffield, the Wigmore Hall and the 2017 Leamington Music Festival. The setting of D.H. Lawrence’s Man and Bat by Howard followed in July 2017, premièred in Sheffield, and this will be its first performance here in Leamington.
Tickets: £24 and £19 reserved, £14 unreserved sides.
Concert sponsored by Presto Classical
Benjamin Nabarro violin
Gemma Rosefield cello
Tim Horton piano
Arensky Trio No 1 in D minor Op 32
Schubert Trio No 1 in B flat D898
The members of the Leonore Piano Trio met in Ensemble 360, which has been performing regularly for Leamington Music since it was founded in 2006. The Trio emerged in 2012 and since then has appeared regularly in Leamington Music Festivals and made a series of acclaimed recordings, mostly of composers deserving more exposure such as Arensky, Lalo, David Matthews, Pixis, Rimsky-Korsakov and Taneyev. The Leonore’s rendition of the trio by Lalo in the 2017 Festival went down very well, and this year’s offering of the first of Schubert’s sublime trios is preceded by Arensky’s wonderfully Romantic first trio from 1894.
Tickets: £16 reserved, £13 unreserved sides.
Concert generously supported by Jennifer Lorch