Guest post: Frances Wilson introduces a special artist in a rather wonderful venue

Please welcome Frances Wilson of The Cross-Eyed Pianist blog, with news of a wonderful young artist playing in a very special place... Great to see the South London Concert Series having to upgrade to a bigger venue, too!

Emmanuel Vass at Brunswick House

Guest post by Frances Wilson

Hard to believe it’s six months since I introduced readers of JDCMB to the South London Concert Series (SLCS), an innovative concept which gives amateur pianists the chance to take to the stage alongside the professionals. The series was launched to a full-to-bursting house at the 1901 Arts Club in November 2013 with a programme of music ranging from Scarlatti to Corea – with some Mozart, Szymanowski and Feuchtwanger along the way – and much enjoyable piano chat at the noisy post-concert reception in the 1901’s elegant upstairs bar and sitting room.

Now the series is two concerts in, both of which sold out within a couple of weeks of being advertised, with a third on 21^st March, also sold out way in advance. Buoyed up by the obvious success and popularity of the concept, my partner in piano adventures, Lorraine Liyanage, and I decided that perhaps we should find a larger venue for our events. It was Lorraine who discovered Brunswick House: just five minutes from London’s Vauxhall Station, this fine Georgian mansion is incongruously flanked by the brand new 5-star hotel and luxury apartments of One Nine Elms.

Part of the London Architectural Salvage and Supply Co (LASSCo), Brunswick House is a treasure trove of antiques and reclaimed curiosities – including, conveniently, a pretty little John Hopkinson baby grand piano in the first floor Saloon, a room festooned with colourful oriental rugs, salvaged stained glass windows, glittering chandeliers, and even a life-size cut out of the actor Tony Curtis.

It wasn’t difficult to find an artist to grace the space, someone who could create the stylish, retro atmosphere of a salon concert from a bygone era: Emmanuel Vass, BBC Music Magazine’s March “rising star”, had already wowed the SLCS audience with his suave showmanship and his ability to seamlessly merge mainstream classical piano repertoire with his own transcriptions.

Emmanuel’s concert at Brunswick House comes hot on the heels of his West End debut in a DEC/Philippines appeal benefit concert, and his successful ‘From Bach to Bond’ national tour and CD launch in 2013. Described as “one to watch” by The Independent, Emmanuel will perform music by Bach, Turina, Liszt and some of his own new transcriptions. And in keeping with the original ethos of the South London Concert Series, he will be supported by performances by talented amateur pianists from the London Piano Meetup Group, playing music by Bach, Mozart, and Chopin. Added to that, guests can enjoy a glass of Prosecco on arrival, and are invited to join performers and hosts in the stylish restaurant at Brunswick House for a post-concert dinner. This promises to be a very special event, an evening of music making and conviviality in a unique and eclectic London venue.

Date: Thursday 3^rd April 2014

Time: 6.45pm for 7.15pm concert

Dress code: smart

Venue: LASSCo/Brunswick House, 30 Wandsworth Road, London SW8 2LG

Buy tickets: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/255923#.UyDJEV5qXdK

‘Emmanuel Vass at Brunswick House’ is presented by the South London Concert Series. Endorsed by top international concert pianist Peter Donohoe as "a wonderfully creative idea", SLCS concerts recreate the atmosphere of the 19th-century musical salon with music and socialising amongst friends in some of London’s most beautiful and intimate small venues.

www.slconcerts.co.uk

Twitter @SLConcerts

Werther: the final scene, with Jonas and Sophie

I missed the Met's cinema relay of Werther yesterday, travelling home from Paris... Thank you to their website for making the final scene available as an "encore" to watch online, starring Jonas Kaufmann, Sophie Koch and a lot of blood. (Update: we hear that this scene is online now because there were technical problems in the cinecast across the US that meant most people didn't actually see it...)

My interview with Sophie from this month's Opera News is here. Keep watching this space for news of t'other one.

Left: the house where Jules Massenet died, close to the Jardins du Luxembourg in Paris's 6ème arrondissement, which I spotted the other day.

Catch-up

Been away in Paris. Here are a few bits and pieces of light reading for you while I get rid of my stinking cold and the blisters on my feet. (Apart from that, it's been a fabulous few days.)

Strauss, Pauline and the fish...a magical opera with some family insights, from the Indy: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/the-composer-and-his-muse-richard-strass-tempestuous-relationship-with-his-wife-pauline-de-ahna-9174239.html

How do you turn something as famous as Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood into an opera? I talked to John Metcalf, who has just done so. Also from the Indy. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/under-milk-wood-the-opera-a-new-voice-for-dylan-thomas-9185085.html

Pop goes the Wagner: why going gaga for JK may indicate, oddly enough, that we haven't altogether lost our marbles. From my Amati.com Soapbox. http://www.amati.com/articles/1108-pop-goes-the-wagner.html

Enjoy. I'm off to bed with some lemsip and a book about Bartok.

Duty of care?

Last week I went to a concert, as one does. A little way off from where I was sitting, I spotted a small African-American girl, probably aged about 8, with her mother. She sat very still and kept very quiet all the way through the first half. Then in the first piece of the second half she bent down and took a sweet out of her bag. A man in front of her turned round and glared daggers. 

When the piece was over he reprimanded her. He'd reckoned without her feisty mum, who was not going to take it. "She had one chocolate! She wasn't talking. She's a child! Were you never a child?" He retorted, with policeman-like pointy gestures: "You're at a performance." The mother, while heads turned nearby, declared: "You're a mean man!" 

Several points here. 

1. The mum and daughter were the only faces of colour in the hall that I could see, other than one or two of the musicians on stage. 
2. The little girl was the youngest person in view - indeed, as far as I could tell, the only child in the audience. I wonder if she will ever want to come back. Kids don't forget things like this.
3. Adults frequently behave far more badly than that in theatres and concert halls. 
4. The man was, regrettably, a critic. 

Don't critics have a duty not to put kids off classical concerts? 

Btw, when I posted this anecdote on my private Facebook page one well-known concert pianist responded by saying that if we can find this mother and daughter he would like to offer them comps to his next recital. That's more like it. 

20-year-old conductor wows London

How often do you go to an orchestral concert and find you're on the edge of your chair, smiling at the warmth and passion bounding off the stage, thrilling at the sounds of early Shostakovich slaloming around the percussion, and watching, enchanted, a real rapport between the soloist and the conductor that makes the most familiar of piano concertos go leaping off the page like a March hare?

And then you realise the conductor is younger than your nephew who hasn't done his uni finals yet.

Meet Ilyich Rivas. Maybe you already have. I saw him conducting in Verbier several years ago and was impressed with him then; in the intervening time he has conducted for Glyndebourne Touring Opera, among other things, and been mentored by Vladimir Jurowski. Now he's been signed by IMG.

Last night's programme with the LPO - his first big London date - was carefully and beautifully chosen. They kicked off with Dvorak's Scherzo Capriccioso, continued with Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 with Simon Trpceski - who has also been following Ilyich's career with great enthusiasm for a while - and in the second half, Mahler's Blumine and Shostakovich's Symphony No.1.

The fresh air swept into the hall with this engaging young Venezuelan, who jogged onto the platform, had perhaps the clearest beat of any conductor I've seen in the past year and led the way through the pieces with some fairly extraordinary freeze-frame gestures that are certainly unusual yet seemed to work a treat. He let the music's passion, beauty and visceral élan sing out to his and our hearts' content. Particularly impressive was the way he handled gear-changes with smooth assurance, maintaining an impeccable sense of timing, and ultimately - best of all - leaving us marvelling at the wonders of the music, first and foremost.

Simon Trpceski's account of the Tchaikovsky would take some bettering. He is a fabulous showman, of course, but his special sound involves a remarkable lightness - there's swift, fierce motion, yet he scarcely seems to touch the ground and his pianissimo touch is at its loveliest in the slow movement. He made a little speech before his encore about the joy of working with Ilyich and seeing his promise coming to fruition; the encore itself, which he dedicated to the young conductor and his family, was from Album for the Young by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Simon's own breakthrough moment arrived in the same hall, with the same orchestra, when he was about Ilyich's age and won the (now sadly defunct) London International Piano Competition. That added a certain poignancy to the evening. It may be a cliché to say "history in the making" - but honest, guv, we don't say such things too often.

Ilyich's grandparents flew in from Venezuela for the concert and received a round of applause to themselves. Incidentally, Ilyich, rarely among young Venezuelan conductors, hasn't been through El Sistema. His father is a conductor and the lad absorbed the art at his knee, mainly in Denver, Colorado.

So come on, orchestra bigwigs - form a nice orderly queue, please. A decade from now, might Ilyich Rivas have the best job in the world? Place your bets.