Concerts

Friday 13th December 2024, 7.30pm
St Cuthbert's Church, Philbeach Gardens, Earl's Court, SW5 9EB

Songs my mother taught me

Siying Chen – soprano
Samuel Draper – piano

Haydn: 'Nun beut die Flur' from Die Schöpfung
Dvořák: Když mne stará matka zpívať učívala from Cigánské melodie
Strauss: Allerseelen
Debussy: Clair de lune
Brahms: Von ewiger Liebe
Strauss: Epheu from Mädchenblumen
Strauss: Das Rosenband
Mozart: Voi avete un cor fedele
Bellini: 'Eccomi in lieta vesta... Oh! Quante volte ti chiedo' from I Capuleti e i Montecchi
Grieg: Sechs Lieder, Op. 48

Saturday 3rd October 2020, 5pm

Tanz 23/24

Sala Koncertowa, Uniwersytet Muzyczny Fryderyka Chopina w Warszawie,
ul. Okólnik 2, Warsaw

With a talk at 3pm at Curie City, Tamka 36

Tanzabend der modernen Musik - Wiederholung auf vielseitigen Wunsch

Reconstructing performances given in Berlin in 1924 by Henri Châtin Hofmann, Alka Nauman and Lucie Palazot will dance in historically reconstructed costumes by Alicia Gladston. The music is selected and performed at the piano by Samuel Draper from works of the contemporary composers of the day that featured in the original programmes: Lord Berners, Alfredo Casella, Zez Confrey, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Ernst Schoen, and Karol Szymanowski. Dr Sam Dolbear and Prof. Esther Leslie present the background in a pre-concert talk at Curie City, followed by a procession to the dance performance. More information on the project can be found here.

ENESCU PREMIÈRE

On Saturday April 29th, Samuel gave the UK première of George Enescu's Fourth Symphony, a masterpiece left partially unorchestrated at the composer's death and later completed for performance by Romanian composer Pascal Bentoiu. Details of the concert, given in partnership with the Romanian Cultural Institute, London, as part of their 'Bentoiu Month' series of events can be found below and at the ICR website.

Here is a preview of our performance from Richard Whitehouse on CLASSICAL SOURCE
and more information on Pascal Bentoiu can be found at TOCCATA CLASSICS.

A review of the concert can be read at CLASSICAL SOURCE

Saturday 29th April 2017, 7pm
St James's Church, Sussex Gardens, Paddington, W2 3UD
Oberon Symphony Orchestra

Mahler: Blumine
Bartók: Romanian Folk Dances
Schubert: Andante from Symphony No. 10 D936A, realized by Brian Newbould
Enescu: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, realized by Pascal Bentoiu (UK première)

Concert given in partnership with the Romanian Cultural Institute

14th Februaray 2016, 2pm
St Mary's Church, St Marychurch Street, Rotherhithe, SE16 4JE
Organ recital as part of SEE16 Arts Festival

Georg Böhm: Chorale Partita on 'Ach wie nichtig, ach wie flüchtig'

Claude Balbastre: 'Joseph est bien marié' from 'Recueil de noëls'

Johann Sebastian Bach: Chorale Prelude on 'Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland' BWV 659

François Couperin: Benedictus en taille from 'Messe pour les paroisses'

John 'Christmas' Beckwith: Voluntary in G minor/major, No. 4 from 'Six Voluntaries'

John Stanley: Voluntary in D minor, No. 8 from 'Ten Voluntaries' Op. 5

Georg Friederich Händel: Concerto for Organ in F major, 'The Cuckoo and the
Nightingale', HWV 295

26th September 2015, 7pm
St James's Church, Sussex Gardens, Paddington, W2 3UD
Oberon Symphony Orchestra

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G (John Paul Ekins)

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D minor

On 26th September 1940, seventy-five years ago to the day of this concert, my great-grandfather, the German philosopher Walter Benjamin, died in his attempt to flee the Nazi fascist regime, for whom he was persona non grata, stripped of his citizenship, on account not only of his Jewishness, but of his publication of Marxist essays. Shostakovich managed to survive the Stalinist regime and maintain his artistic integrity by virtue of the ability of music to say many things at once. This performance of Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony was dedicated to my great-grandfather, and through him to all those who have suffered under regimes of oppression or had to flee their homelands.

'Es ist niemals ein Dokument der Kultur, ohne zugleich ein solches der Barbarei zu sein.'

'There is no document of culture which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.'