Music

Classical music (review)

30th April 2010

Think of Tavistock and you’ll possibly associate it with the annual Ten Tors Expedition, which takes place early next month.

On the other hand, if you’re involved in the town’s ongoing Music & Arts Festival, then it’s more likely you’ll be talking about the Ten Tors Orchestra which gives this year’s Gala Concert in Tavistock Parish Church on Saturday May 1 at 7.30pm.

Of course, you might still think that the concert’s title, ‘Wild and Wondrous’ is perhaps more appropriate for a trek across Dartmoor than an evening of Baroque music, but conductor, Simon Ible, has once more managed to come up with a programme which acknowledges how composers of all ages have been inspired by nature, and Vivaldi and Handel were certainly no exception.

Here, the freshness of spring is captured by the opening concerto of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, while Handel perfectly alludes to the delights of birdsong in his organ concerto, The Cuckoo and the Nightingale.

Well-known violinist, Mary Eade, and organist, Jonathan Watts, both regular members of the TTO, will step forward for their respective solo roles, with soprano, Ruby Hughes, making a welcome return in opera arias by Handel, and Vivaldi’s much-loved Nulla in mundo pax sincera.

Albinoni’s Sonata a cinque in G minor concludes what should be a veritable May Day musical treat. Ruby won both the first prize and the audience prize at the 2009 London Handel Singing Competition and also made her Vienna debut at the Theater an der Wien the same year.

Tickets (£17 / £15 Friends of Tavistock Music & Arts Festival, Ten Tors Orchestra and Peninsula Arts / £5 children & students) are available in advance from Peninsula Arts (01752 585050), the Wharf Arts Centre box office, or on the door, with no charge for University of Plymouth students. If you arrive early to get a good seat, you’ll also get a chance to hear the St Eustachius Bell-ringers prior to the concert at 6.45pm.

Another undoubted highlight of this year’s festival will be an afternoon recital by the Dante String Quartet in Lamerton Parish Church on Sunday May 2 at 2.00pm.

Once more following on the ‘Wild and Wondrous’ theme, the programme will include regular quartet music by Rossini, Puccini, Verdi and Smetana, and a couple of novelties like Orang-u-Tango and String Boogie.

Tickets (£10 / £8 Friends) are available in advance from the Wharf Arts Centre box office, or on the door. But if you can’t make this concert, then the quartet has its own Dante Festival in the Tamar Valley at the end of May, with venues ranging from barns to ancient churches, and with a special emphasis on introducing young people and families to chamber music.

For further information and booking please visit the website (www.dantefestival.org).

But if you’re looking for something quite different, then The Old Chapel, Calstock presents the next concert in the Calstock Arts Series on Saturday May 1 at 7.30pm, when guitarists, Jason Carter and Mark Barnwell return to the platform, some twenty years since their first collaboration.

But Jason isn’t just another guitarist for, not only has he specialised in performing on his eighteen-string harp guitar, literally a hybrid of these two instruments, he has also become a global cultural ambassador, having appeared in over eighty countries, including some of the least accessible, politically and geographically, such as North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran and Uzbekistan, and will be recounting from his travels as well as playing, with two tracks also featuring the Loop Station, which makes use of pre-prepared beats and samples triggered live.

Mark specialises in Flamenco, Spanish and Latin styles and, like Jason, also enjoys the recording, production and composition of music.

After studying classical guitar from an early age, Mark turned his hand to the pop and rock scene, playing with a variety of outfits from rock to funk, as far afield as Cornwall to Australia. Tickets cost £6 in advance and £8 on the door. For further information, please visit the website (www.calstockarts.org.uk).

By Philip R Buttall – Classical Music Writer

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