Merlin Music

Season Tickets, admitting members to all seven concerts of the Merlin 2007-08 season, are available from Mrs. Christine Ferguson,01600 772747, priced at £70 (single), £130 (couple), £20 (Student). This represents a significant saving on the total price of tickets to individual events. Being a member also helps guarantee the future of serious music of an international standard in Monmouth.

Friday 21st September 2007, 7.30pm
NEW LONDON CHAMBER ENSEMBLE
Lisa Nelsen (Flute), Melanie Ragge (Oboe), Neyire Ashworth (Clarinet), Meyrick Alexander (Bassoon), Stephen Stirling (French Horn)

Formed in early 2001, the NLCE came together as a result of a mutual desire to explore different ways of communicating musical energy to the audience. Their programmes range from the finest centrepieces of the chamber music repertoire, to fully-staged theatrical works. New works have recently been written for the NLCE by Edward Longstaff and John Woolrich, and they are the resident quintet to the National Youth Chamber Orchestra of Great Britain.

Each player in the group is a virtuoso, but as a group they seem to have effortlessly acquired those essential chamber music skills of give and take which would grace a long-established string quartet – Guy Woolfenden

Byrd Pavan and Galliard
Mozart/Vester Andante für eine Orgelwaltze K616
Fauré/Davies Dolly Suite
Beckett ‘Queue’
Neilsen Quintet Op. 43
Berio Opus No Zoo (1,2,4)

£15, £8.

Back to top

In 2003, at the age of fifteen, Adam was one of the youngest-ever finalists of the BBC Young Musician of the Year, and has since made his debuts in the Wigmore Hall, Symphony Hall and the Bridgwater Hall. Sally Price won the Marisa Robles Harp Prize at the Royal Overseas League in 1996, London Harp Competition in 1999, and has been a finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition. In 2006 she made her debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Adam Walker was clearly lost in the music and played it with all the delicacy and drama it needed – Edinburgh Guide

Pryce was unquestionably impressive – The Guardian

Bach Sonata in E flat BWV 1031
Jongen Danse Lente
Saint-Saëns Romance Op. 37
Feld Sonatine
Mozart Andante in C
Takemitsu Toward the Sea III
Damase Sonata for Flute and Harp

£15, £8.

Back to top

An evening to transport you to the timeless beauty of the Western Isles. Anne Martin and Ingrid Henderson explore the shimmering beauty of traditional Gaelic Song. Anne Martin has been singing and researching Gaelic Song since her childhood on the Isle of Skye, learning much from her neighbours and relatives. Performing professionally since 1998, her first album, Co. . ? (Gaelic for Who . . ?) was received with acclaim. Harpist Ingrid Henderson, also from the West Coast of Scotland, won the BBC Young Folk Musician of the Year at the age of thirteen and has since become much sought after as both a live and a recording musician. Anne and Ingrid are equally at home performing in the concert hall or in the intimacy of an island school and have performed all over the world, returning earlier this year from a two-month tour of Australia.

Martin sings these Gaelic songs straight from the heart, never more strikingly than in the awesomely beautiful lullaby Maighdeanan na h-airigh . . . – The Scotsman

Martin’s expressive voice and presentation seem to embody the spare beauty of her part of Scotland – Dirty Linen Magazine

Music and Song from the Scottish Gaelic Tradition

£15, £8.

Back to top

A return visit to the Merlin Music Society by one of the outstanding pianists of his generation, Llŷr Williams brings an extraordinary musical intelligence to his work. In the past two years Llŷr has made his Proms debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Jiri Belohlavek, opened the Queen’s Hall series at the Edinburgh Festival, worked with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, BBC NOW, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Hallé Orchestra.

Llŷr graduated from the Queen’s College, Oxford, with a First Class Alpha degree, going on to post-graduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music where he won every prize and award, eventually becoming Shinn Fellow there. In 2005 was awarded the MIDEM Classique ‘Outstanding Young Artist’ Award.

One of the truly great musicians of our time . . . those with ears to hear will have followed Williams’s playing as it has grown ever more expansive . . . a truly virtuoso performance – The Times

Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 31 Op. 1 No 1
Debussy Children’s Corner
Schumann Kreisleriana Op. 16
Liszt Fantasie on two scenes from The Marriage of Figaro

£15, £8.

Back to top

The EUCO gave its first concerts in 1981 and has since gained a world-wide reputation. Regular worldwide tours have recently included those to mark the birthday of Princess Galyani of Thailand and the 77th birthday of King Sihanouk of Cambodia. The orchestra has performed with many legendary artists, including Igor Oistrakh, Mischa Maisky and James Galway.

The concert was superb . . . the Orchestra’s response to the emotional demands of the work was testimony to their musicianship – Eastern Daily Press

Un Mozart di limpida grazia . . .l’orchestra ha sfoggiato la sua capacità di fusione timbrica – La Stampa

Mendelssohn G Minor Symphony
Greig Two Elegaic Melodies
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K414
Mozart Symphony No. 29

£15, £8.

Back to top

Named BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2000, Guy Johnston has “already forged a place as one of the country’s most promising and distinctive cellists” (The Strad 2004). In 2001 he was the youngest artist ever to open the Proms season, at which he performed Elgar’s Cello Concerto, accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin. Guy plays on a rare cello by Pellizon, dated 1820.

Huw Watkins, a native of South Wales, studied piano with Peter Lawson and Peter Pettinger, and in 2001 was awarded the Constant and Kit Lambert Fellowship of the Royal College of Music, where he is currently Professor of Composition.

Remarkable by any standard – The Telegraph

Guy Johnston played with such virtuosity and feeling that it came as no surprise to hear that the conductor, Jan Pascal Tortelier, said that Johnston’s performance brought to mind that electrifying recording of the Elgar Violin Concerto made by Menuhin when he was sixteen – The Times

Mendelssohn Variations Concertantes Op. 17
Bridge Sonata for ‘Cello and Piano
Shostakovich ‘Cello Sonata in D minor Op. 40
Beethoven Seven Variations on Bei Männern, welche liebe

£15, £8.

Back to top

The closing concert of the Merlin Season brings a welcome return to Monmouth for the BBC NOW, this time under the inspirational conductor, Nicholas Kraemer. Now eighty years old as an institution, the orchestra goes from strength to strength, continuing to explore new or rare repertoire and investigate new audiences and new venues. The orchestra’s long association with Monmouth is a highlight of the town’s cultural year as well as being a major event for the Merlin Music Society.

The BBC NOW is now one of the best ensembles in Britain – The Guardian

. . . the triumph of Nicholas Kraemer, an early music expert making his Berlin Philharmonic Debut – Der Tagesspiegel

Kraemer was faultless, finding violence as well as pity in the score – The Guardian

Dvorak Wind Serenade
Vaughan Williams Oboe Concerto
soloist David Cowley
Berkeley Meditation for Strings
Haydn Symphony No. 101

£15, £8.

Back to top