Roderick Williams baritone
Iain Burnside piano
From the Forest of Dean to the Appalachians
Songs by Ina Boyle, Ivor Gurney, John Ireland, Elaine Hugh-Jones, Herbert Howells, Michael Head, Douglas Weiland, Anthony Payne, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Charles Villiers Stanford, Arthur Bliss and African American Spirituals (arr. Roderick Williams)
Roddy and Iain have devised a wonderful programme that transports us across land, seas and time, shining a reflective light on an age before and after the turn of the 20th century. Their prime focus is on the ‘Dymock Poets’, a group of friends – including Edward Thomas and Rupert Brooke – who lived near the Gloucestershire village in the years leading up to the First World War and who welcomed the great American poet Robert Frost into their midst during his extended trip to England. It is his work that provides the bridge to American forebears and contemporaries Walt Whitman and Edna St Vincent Millay.
There is much beauty in evocative poems of rural life, but the shadows of injustice, war and servitude are never far away. It is no wonder that so many great composers have been moved to write songs to the arresting words of these poets, and this programme offers a compelling sequence that gives a vision of life 100 years ago that nevertheless still has resonances in our modern, contrary world.
Tickets: £34/£27 (concessions £19/£16). Free tickets for under 26s.
OFFER: Free entry to Saturday morning Masterclass when booked at the same time.
“a perceptive and highly skilled partnership” MusicWeb International
Artist info: grovesartists.com/artist/roderick-williams / askonasholt.com/artist/iain-burnside
