Thursday 21 June, 7pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Storm and Refuge
2021 Festival Programme
Sunshine After Rain
Summer String Serenade
Thursday 17 June, 7.30pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Tickets £20
The London Mozart Players with pianist Mark Bebbington open the festival with a programme of glorious British music for strings.
Generously supported by The John Ireland Trust
Artists:
Mark Bebbington, piano
Simon Blendis, leader/director
London Mozart Players
Programme:
Britten: Simple Symphony
Ireland: Downland Suite
Finzi: Eclogue
Holst: St. Paul's Suite
Elgar: Serenade for Strings
Long Ago and Far Away
Friday 18 June, 7.00pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Tickets £20
Some of the most captivating songs ever written by a host of legendary composers - Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, George & Ira Gershwin, Rogers & Hart and more - brought to life in a series of gorgeous new arrangements.
Artists:
Mary Carewe, vocalist
Graham Bickley, vocalist
Andrew Vinter, piano
Programme:
Classic songs of love and romance by Jerome Kern,
Cole Porter, George & Ira Gershwin, Rogers & Hart
and more...
On Wenlock Edge
Saturday 19 June, 7.00pm
St Bartholomew the Great
Tickets £20
An Anglo-French programme of lyrical songs by Poulenc, Walton, Chaminade and Finzi, culminating in Vaughan Williams’ evocative song cycle, presented with Jeremy Hamway-Bidgood’s award-winning shadow-play animation.
On Wenlock Edge has been officially selected for six film festivals and this is a rare chance to see it screened as originally conceived, with a live performance as soundtrack, and the film edited live as the music is played. The film creates a story connecting the six songs, and drawing on the life of the poet A E Housman, whose poems are the texts for the cycle.
Programme:
Poulenc: Les Chemins de l’amour
Poulenc: Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon
Walton: Three Façade Settings
Finzi: 'Budmouth Dears', 'Shortening Days' and 'The Dance Continued' from A Young Man's Exhortation
Chaminade: Attente
Chaminade: La lune paresseuse
Chaminade: Écrin
Chaminade: Viens, mon bien-aimée
Chaminade: Automne
Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge
Artists:
Daniel Norman, tenor
Anna Cavaliero, soprano
Sholto Kynoch, piano
Choral Evensong
Sunday 20th June, 5.00pm
St Bartholomew the Great
Free admission
The Choir of St Bartholomew the Great for Choral sings Choral
Evensong under the direction of Rupert Gough.
Artists:
St Bartholomew the Great Choir
Rupert Gough, Music Director
Programme:
Walton: Set Me As A Seal Upon Thine Heart
Leighton: Responses
Leighton: The Second Service
Howells: Like as the Hart
Parry: Fantasia and Fugue in G
'Spirit of Eternal Sunshine' - Dvořák's American Quartet
Tuesday 22nd June, 1.00pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Tickets £10
A delightful lunchtime programme featuring the quartet which “reflects” (in the words of Dvořák scholar Jaroslav Holeček) “the happy, restful moments and the magic of the beautiful countryside that the composer would walk every day of his stay there, usually beginning shortly after sunrise.”
Artists:
Brother Tree Sound Quartet:
Anna de Bruin, violin
Thea Spiers, violin
Peter Mallinson, viola
Julia Graham, cello
Programme:
Haydn: String Quartet in D major, Op. 64 no 5 'Lark'
Nobuto: ‘Skip’ (live premiere)
Dvořák: String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 'American'
I, CLARA: Clara Schumann - A Life in Music
Wednesday 23 June, 7.00pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Tickets £20
Created to celebrate 200 years since Clara Wieck Schumann’s birth in 1819 and premiered at Kings Place in October 2019, I, Clara tells her extraordinary life story in her own words.
Clara Schumann was a truly exceptional woman, not just a devoted wife to the composer Robert Schumann, but a ground-breaking musician in her own right. Over six decades she gave over 1,500 concerts and determined the format of the piano recital that is familiar to us today.
As a child prodigy, she was groomed for stardom by her piano teacher father, Friedrich Wieck and was dazzling audiences throughout Europe by the age of eight. She married Robert against her father’s wishes and became the mother of eight children. When her husband declined tragically into mental illness and attempted suicide, she continued both to run the household and to make an international concert career to support the family.
Clara championed the works of her husband and of Chopin, Mendelssohn, Brahms and many others, but was also herself a talented composer, producing a piano concerto, numerous solo piano works, chamber music and songs.
For more information, please visit: http://lucyparham.com/project/i-clara-composer-portrait
Artists:
Lucy Parham, piano
Joanna David*, narrator
Scripted by Lucy Parham
Programme:
The narrative of I, Clara, drawn from letters and diaries, is interspersed with live performances of her works, and of
music by Robert Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Mendelssohn,
and Chopin.
Lunchtime with Poulenc
Thursday 24 June, 1.00pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Tickets £10
Sparkling, elegant Poulenc - perfect for lunchtime escapism. Explore Poulenc's chamber music for winds and piano with Mark Bebbington and woodwind principals from leading London orchestras.
Artists:
Mark Bebbington, piano
Emer McDonough, flute
John Roberts, oboe
Jonathan Davies, bassoon
Programme:
Poulenc: Sonata for Flute & Piano
Poulenc: Sonata for Oboe & Piano
Poulenc: Trio for Piano, Oboe & Bassoon
Fascinating Rhythms: A Celebration of Vocal Jazz Standards
Thursday 24 June, 7.00pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Tickets £20
International recording and concert artists Michael Dore and Jacqueline Barron - both former Swingle Singers - perform unusual and original arrangements of Gershwin, Arlen, Porter and Rodgers through to contemporary classics of Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel & Michael Bublé
Artists:
Michael Dore, vocalist
Jacqueline Barron, vocalist
John G Smith, piano
Zoltan Dekany, bass
Programme:
A Celebration of Vocal Jazz Standards
Royal Philharmonic Brass
Friday 25 June, 7.00pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Tickets £20
Rousing, majestic music for brass quintet and organ played by the principals of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Artists:
Mike Allen, trumpet
Adam Wright, trumpet
James Pillai, horn
Rupert Whitehead, trombone
Kevin Morgan, tuba
Iestyn Evans, organ
Programme:
Henry VIII: Suite
Kevin McKee: Escape
J S Bach: Prelude and Fugue in C
Arnold: Quintet no.1
Hollins: Trumpet Minuet
Gigout: Grand Choeur Dialogue
Guilmant: March on a Theme of Handel
Gershwin: Song Selection
Karg-Elert: Wunderberbarer König
Finale: Sunshine after Rain
Saturday 26 June, 6.30pm
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Tickets £20; children under 16 £10
(recommended minimum age: 6)
A family concert for choir with jazz piano trio - full of rain, sun and rainbows, including Flanders & Horovitz's Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo.
Artists:
City of London Choir
Njabulo Madlala, baritone
Andrew Vinter, piano
Andrew Pask, bass
Mike Smith, drums
Hilary Davan Wetton, conductor
Programme:
George Shearing: Songs & Sonnets from Shakespeare
Horovitz/Flanders: Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo
Arlen: Over the Rainbow
....and songs of sunshine and rain
Support
We are deeply grateful to CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP, M&G Investments, the John Ireland Trust, the Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust, the Keyboard Charitable Trust, Jaques Samuels Pianos and all our supporters for making this first year of Summer Music in City Festivals possible. We are grateful to the clergy, churchwardens and administrators of St Giles Cripplegate, St Bartholomew the Great, St Stephen Walbrook, St Mary-le-Bow and St Bride's for all their help and support.