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A
highlight in the Vaughan Williams Society calendar for 2004 was
a special concert held at The Royal College of Music on Tuesday
2nd March to mark the publication of The
Complete Poems of Ursula Vaughan Williams and There
was a time... a collection of
photographs from Ursula's personal archive.
The concert was introduced with a Welcome by Dame Janet Ritterman,
Director of The Royal College of Music and Stephen Connock MBE,
Chairman of the RVW Society. Amongst the important musical figures
who attended were Sir Roger Norrington, David Willcocks and Lord
Armstrong.
The programme of Readings from
Ursula's book (Readers: Michael Hodgson, Sophie
Bevan, David Kimberg, Lorna Bridge, Ye-Seul Yoo and William
Godwin) and musical interludes was performed
entirely by students, staff and junior fellows of The Royal
College of Music.
Four Last Songs for
voice and piano is a group of songs
composed by Vaughan Williams between 1954 and
1958 and which capture the composer's later
style. Poignant and moving, they were performed
beautifully by young mezzo soprano, Jennifer
Johnston who was sensitively accompanied on
piano by Alisdair Hogarth.
The concert concluded with VW's early masterpiece,
On Wenlock Edge. The atmospheric effects so
clearly influenced by VW's studies with Ravel
were beautifully realised by the Bronte String
Quartet (Sara Trickey (violin) Katharine Gorsuch
(violin) Jon Thorne (viola) Daisy
Gathorne-Hardy (cello). Tenor was Ben Johnson and David Owen
Norris played piano.
The programme was concluded by Michael Kennedy
CBE.
To read more about There was a time... a
collection of largely unpublished photographs of the composer,
his friends and family and The Complete Poems
of Ursula Vaughan Williams visit our publications page:
www.rvwsociety.com/albionbooks.html
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