Chineke! Orchestra 4 September 2016
Sheku Kanneh-Mason at Royal Festival Hall 4 September 2016
Sergio A. Mims writes:
Here's another great review from the Chineke! Orchestra concert this past weekend:
Classical Source
Chineke! Orchestra/Kevin John Edusei – Finlandia, L’Amant anonyme, New World Symphony – Sheku Kanneh-Mason plays Haydn
Sunday, September 04, 2016 Southbank Centre, London – Royal Festival Hall
Reviewed by Antony Hodgson
Chineke! is a flourishing organisation created by Chi-chi Nwanoku,
principal double bass of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and a
professor at the Royal Academy of Music. There is also an associated
junior orchestra (ages 11 to 18). The principle is to provide “career
opportunities to young BME classical musicians in the UK and Europe.”
To open this concert with Sibelius’s nationalistic Finlandia was an
excellent idea but this was not Finlandia as we know it because the
hymn-like melody was given an English text sung by a sixty-strong choir
distributed within the aisles of the auditorium. This was a splendid
way initially to display the quality of the orchestra, especially the
brass, and heard from amid the extremely powerful soprano section of the
chorus it was a most unusual and very exciting experience.
Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799) was born in Guadeloupe, son
of the wealthy French planter George Bologne de Saint-Georges and his
slave Nanon. He was educated in France and became immensely famous as a
master swordsman; he also became an officer of the King’s Bodyguard.
He became director of Gossec’s great orchestra Le Concert des Amateurs
and his skill as a violinist was regarded as being on a par with his
remarkable fencing abilities.
The Overture to his opera L’Amant anonyme is in effect a brief
three-movement Symphony and is scored in much the same way as an early
Haydn Symphony with oboes, horns and strings. Kevin John Edusei is
clearly aware of ‘period’ style because, as also in the Cello Concerto
that followed, he employed harpsichord and bassoon continuo.
The Overture is a delightful work; it was performed elegantly featuring
some ideally smooth phrasing from the strings in the slow section.
Eighteenth-century style was also evident an outstanding reading of the
Haydn. Sheku Kanneh-Mason combined lightness of touch with astounding
precision. Every note, even when a passage was both quiet and rapid,
was audible. This gentle reading had no over-emphasis and the orchestra
subtly yielded to the solo line whenever possible.
Retweeted
By Shauna L. Howard (@ShaunaLHoward)
Retweeted
By Shauna L. Howard (@ShaunaLHoward)
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