Proms at Dewsbury 15:00 - August 2023

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

15:00 Sunday 6 August 2023
Dewsbury Town Hall

Sergey Rachmaninov: Vocalise (arr. R. Wallfisch)
Dora Pejačević: Cello Sonata in E minor, Op. 35
Lara Weaver: A Thing That Holds
Sergey Rachmaninov: Cello Sonata in G minor

Laura van der Heijden cello
Jâms Coleman piano

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Former BBC Young Musician of the Year Laura van der Heijden and pianist Jâms Coleman present a programme of 20th- and 21st-century music for cello and piano. Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata is a work suffused with the mystical spirit of Russian Orthodoxy. That spiritual journey in sound becomes a spatial one in Lara Weaver’s A Thing That Holds – an exploration of the cello as a vessel that contains and releases. This season’s spotlight on Croatian composer Dora Pejačević continues with the composer’s Cello Sonata, with echoes of Brahms and Mendelssohn running through its melody-filled movements. The concert opens with Rachmaninov’s lyrical Vocalise.

[jonfan]

An enjoyable programme which had a very enthusiastic audience. Great to hear Laura thank everyone for coming, which puts people in a positive frame to start with.

[bluestateprommer]

Very late catch-up on this "Proms at" chamber concert with Laura vdH and Jâms C., well worth a listen if anyone else hasn't already checked it out. Dora Pejačević's Cello Sonata is a fine discovery, if not as melodically indelible as Rachmaninov (but then few composers are), but definitely glad to have heard it. Lara Weaver's new work is a bit of a mishmash of styles, with more than a tinge of pop-inspired rhythms. Nice of LW to take a bow at the end (Tom McKinney said that LW traveled from Belfast for the concert). Applause between all the movements of the Dora P. and the Rachmaninov works would indicate a fair number of classical newbies/relative newbies in the audience.

[jonfan]

I trust there isn't any looking down one's nose at people who applaud between movements. Two friends of mine attended this concert and thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the friendly rapport between audience and performers. They hadn’t attended a violin and piano recital before. It’s the purpose of these Proms away from London to stimulate new audiences and it certainly worked in Dewsbury; the programme wasn’t a Hall of Fame clone either. Dewsbury does host Opera North chamber concerts regularly so classical concert etiquette is known.

[Barbirollians]

Erm cello . Laura van der H is a very fine cellist . Somewhat overshadowed by the fame of Sheku Kanneh-Mason I think she is just as fine a player as he is and her Walton Cello Concerto in that final in 2012 was outstanding .