Vaughan Williams Anniversary Concert May 11, 2008

Richard Hickox conductor
Gerald Finley baritone
Catherine Wyn-Rogers Maurya
Matthew Brooke Bartley
Sarah Fox Cathleen
Gillian Keith Nora
Brighton Festival Chorus

The Wasps Overture
Toward the unknown Region
Songs of Travel
Riders to the Sea

Vaughan Williams stands alongside Britten and Elgar as one of the most popular and enduring of 20th-century English composers. Now, to mark 50 years since his death, one of his foremost interpreters, Richard Hickox, leads his own City of London Sinfonia in a special anniversary concert.

The evening opens with the spirited The Wasps overture, followed by the composer's Toward the Unknown Region, a flawless marriage of music and Walt Whitman's verse. World renowned Canadian baritone Gerald Finley then sings a rarely performed orchestral arrangement of Songs of Travel, eight poems by R. L. Stevenson in the tradition of the Romantic questing song cycle.

The second half features a rare concert performance of Vaughan Williams' haunting 'music drama' based on J.M. Synge's tragic one-act play about a griefstricken Irish fishing community. A heart-wrenching tale, its poetic rhythms and potent images of a windswept Arran Isle are perfectly mirrored in the composer's supple impressionism.

Concert to be recorded by BBC Radio 3.

Official Website: http://www.brightonfestival.org/Event_Details.aspx?eid=2720