SUNDAY 7 March 2021 3PM
LILI BOULANGER
D’un matin de printemps
VILLA
Sortilège
LISZT
Piano Concerto No 1 in E flat major
DUKAS
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
WILLIAMS
Fantasia On Welsh Nursery Tunes
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
Capriccio Espagnol
Stephen Hough: Piano
Alice Farnham: Conductor
This lively and varied concert on the eve of 2021 International Women’s Day not only includes three fabulous works by women composers, but also features guest conductor Alice Farnham, who will be the first woman to conduct the RTWSO in their long history.
A concert designed for the whole family, it will also be at the heart of one of our much loved outreach projects with local school children and includes music to appeal to young and old alike. Lili Boulanger was an extraordinarily talented composer who died tragically young aged just 24. D’un matin de printemps is one of her last works, an expressive symphonic poem notable for its colourful harmony and orchestration. We are especially pleased to include a work by Sylvia Villa, a young Tunbridge Wells composer. Her Sortilège is a highly atmospheric piece evoking the memory of a medieval witches’ prison. Grace Williams’s Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes is a lively and skilfully assembled collection of Welsh nursery songs and lullabies. We welcome back Stephen Hough to play Liszt’s First Piano Concerto, and we include two ever-popular family favourites: Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice (made famous in Disney’s ‘Fantasia’) and Rimsky-Korsakov’s brilliant evocation of Spain: Capriccio Espagnol.
Stephen Hough
STEPHEN HOUGH One of the most distinctive artists of his generation, Stephen Hough combines a distinguished career as a pianist with those of composer and writer. Named by The Economist as one of Twenty Living Polymaths, Hough was the first classical performer to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (2001) and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the New Year’s Honours 2014.
He was awarded Northwestern University’s 2008 Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano, won the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award in 2010, and in 2016 was made an Honorary Member of RPS.