Proms at ... Cadogan Hall 7 – 27.08.18

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

13:00
Cadogan Hall

Leonard Bernstein: La bonne cuisine
Bushra El-Turk: Crème Brûlée on a Tree - BBC commission: world première
Leonard Bernstein: Fancy Free – 'Big Stuff', Conch Town - UK première
Aaron Copland: Pastorale
Samuel Barber: Hermit Songs, Op. 29 – ‘Sea Snatch’; ‘The Monk and His Cat’
Marc Blitzstein: Modest Maid’; ‘Stay in My Arms’
Stephen Sondheim : A Little Night Music – 'The Miller's Son'
Leonard Bernstein: Trouble in Tahiti – 'What a Movie!'

Wallis Giunta mezzo-soprano
Michael Sikich piano
Iain Farrington piano
Toby Kearney percussion
Owen Gunnell percussion

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

¿Trozos sangrantes?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

¿Trozos sangrantes?

Molestia sangrantes.

[bluestateprommer]

Very enjoyable recital from Wallis Giunta (she's Canadian, BTW - didn't know this until Petroc mentioned it at the end) and Michael Sikich, with a well-placed break for WG towards the end of the 1st half hour in the form of Conch Town (i.e. no singer required there, instead two pianists (*) and percussion). The new commission from Bushra El-Turk was good, clean fun, although it did run on a bit, IMHO. For those listening to Conch Town, there is a spoiler alert in the mention of one passage that later became "America" from West Side Story, but you'll want to keep your ears alert for passages from other Bernstein works. Another spoiler alert is a bit of humo(u)r at the end of "The Monk and His Cat", for ailurophiles (like me - was petting kitty as I listened). Marc Blitzstein's "Modest Maid" was a surprise, as I didn't know it at all, in terms of the lyrics - think very PG-13 (you couldn't do rated R lyrics in 1943, as such).

(*) Corrected per PhilipT's post

[PhilipT]

... in the form of Conch Town (i.e. no singer required there, instead two pianos and percussion).

Errm, I was there. There was one piano, played by two chaps (and another two on the percussion).

For those listening on the radio, who missed the encore, it was "Send In The Clowns", sung by Ms. Guinta, and very well too; though, as I said to my lunch companion afterwards, "With her talents she could sing the telephone directory and people would applaud."

[bluestateprommer]

Errm, I was there. There was one piano, played by two chaps (and another two on the percussion).

For those listening on the radio, who missed the encore, it was "Send In The Clowns", sung by Ms. Guinta, and very well too; though, as I said to my lunch companion afterwards, "With her talents she could sing the telephone directory and people would applaud."

Correction made to post appropriately; thx for the clarification. (True, I wasn't there; slight distance complication, ya know.) It's a shame that the encore wasn't aired, presumably because of the tight R3 schedule, to cram in a rebroadcast of Prom 47 (which was a long Prom) starting at 14:00, and then at 16:15, switch to the Relaxed Prom. In hindsight, the Debussy just prior to the Relaxed Prom could have been sacrificed to WG's Sondheim encore a few hours earlier. Oh well.

PS: WG sang "Send in the Clowns" on In Tune a few days ago. It's obviously not the live Cadogan Hall experience with an audience of hundreds, but one takes what one can get, if one couldn't be there. You can jump to 1:55:45 or so on iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/play/m0000732