These once or twice monthly Friday afternoon sessions organised by Barry Millington have become seriously popular. They are at 2.30 and complimentary tea and biscuits follow. Admission is £2 for Fellowship Members and £4 for non Members. Programme details as follows:
Friday 20th September
Earth and Air and Rain
Niall Hoskin (baritone) and Barry Millington (piano)
Gerald Finzi (1901–56) is best known for his Dies Natalis and Intimations of Immortality, but he also wrote over 100 songs and the cycle Earth and Air and Rain established him as one of the great masters of the genre in the English language. These ten songs are exquisite settings of poems by Thomas Hardy, by turns tender, wistful and impassioned.
Niall started singing with Dorset Opera (their first two productions, Carmen and The Bartered Bride), and in the choir of Clare College, Cambridge, where he read Modern Languages.
He has taken title roles in Macbeth, The Flying Dutchman, Gianni Schicchi, Falstaff, Don Giovanni, Nabucco and Rigoletto. Other roles have included Sharpless Madama Butterfly, Scarpia Tosca, Alberich Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung, Giorgio Germont La Traviata and a wealth of other parts from Monteverdi.and Handel to Walton and Grace Williams.
As well as Lieder recitals and oratorio Niall has given several performances of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts music; appeared 49 times as actor/narrator in Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes and narrated Façade and Peter and The Wolf.
Future plans include a concert of Bach choral works, Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem and scenes from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.