Artist Spotlight - Violinist Lucy Russell

 
Lucy Russell is among the most distinguished of international violinists who has now led the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists for several years. She has achieved eminence on both historical instruments and their ‘modern’ counterparts, performing and recording music from Monteverdi to the present day with equal distinction and authority. She became leader of the Fitzwilliam String Quartet in 1995; with them she has played all over Europe, North America, South Africa, Canada and Israel as well as making recordings for Linn Records, Divine Art Records, the BBC and various foreign radio stations. The quartet plays on both modern and historical set ups and will be recording late Beethoven String Quartets on heavy gut for Linn this Autumn. In addition to Yorkshire Baroque Soloists, Lucy is much in demand as Leader of several Early Music orchestras and has worked in this capacity for such as The King’s Consort, Classical Opera Company, Dunedin Consort, and she has also been a key player with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.  She has made numerous recordings over the years as an orchestral and chamber player and regularly teams up with Rachel Podger with her own ensemble, Brecon Baroque. 
 
Tell us a bit more about performing in York with the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists: 
I was a student when I first had the opportunity to play with YBS. I must have been fairly clueless and 'green' but I cut my teeth on some of the very best repertoire. It's been about 3 decades now since I first played and I think I can only have been unavailable to play with the group for only one or two concerts! We've  played abroad, recorded and done what most successful outfits do but most importantly, we are a tight knit bunch who cherish making music together and enjoying each other's company!
 

Lucy Russell

You've recently recorded J.S Bach Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord with John Butt what was your experience of recording such a cornerstone of the repertoire?    
Recording the Bach Violin Sonatas was the mission of a lifetime!  I started to dabble with these works whilst still a student at York and had always been drawn to them but to finally record them was a dream come true. They offer the best of Bach - they encompass Bach the cerebral, the human being, the profound, the emotional, the jazzy. It's all there and playing with John was a 'hand in glove' experience and a lot of fun too!
 
Do you plan any similar projects? 
I'm into CPE Bach (one of Bach's sons) and Beethoven and I'd love to record these sonatas some day. Maybe also Mozart.....how long have I got?!!

As a youngster, did you ever have a eureka moment listening to or performing a certain piece of music? 
I've had so many eureka moments whilst listening to music/playing music that it's hard to single out any particular one. As a youngster, performing Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony and Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances fuelled my passion for the great romantic composers. Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Verdi's Requiem also blew my mind. I think I'm very fortunate to have these kind of moments on a regular basis and as leader of the Fitzwilliam String Quartet, this can happen on an almost daily basis - Beethoven late quartets spring to mind.......Thank goodness for Music!
 

Lucy leading Yorkshire Baroque Soloists rehearsing Haydn Creation

If you could travel in a musical time machine to experience a certain period or era in history where and when would you travel to?
I'd have loved to meet Haydn. His music, like that of Bach, appeals to me for all the same reasons I quote above.  He is a three-dimensional composer and his imagination, humour, pathos etc seemingly endless. Hugely respected by Beethoven and Mozart, to name but two, he had a profound influence on his contemporaries and beyond yet I think he'd have been more fun to hang out with in the Bier Keller than either of his aforementioned grumpy or flighty chums!
 
What is your musical guilty pleasure?

Lucy with the Fitzwilliam String Quartet

Mainstream jazz or Bruckner symphonies listened to at home with no lights on!

How do you relax?
Inventing new ways to incorporate yet more garlic or chilli into my cooking. And practising yoga!
 
What would your super power be?
To ensure a permanent state of world peace.
 
What is your most treasured possession?
Life itself.
 
What keeps you awake at night?
The music I'm currently working on!

We look forward to hearing Lucy lead the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists in JS Bach Easter Oratorio (BWV 249), Bach Mass in G minor (BWV 235) and Ascension Oratorio (BWV 11).   The concert will take place in St Michael le Belfrey, York on Saturday 12 March and further details on the concert and how to buy tickets can be found at: bit.ly/YBach

You can find more information on Lucy and the Fitzwilliam string quartet at http://www.fitzwilliamquartet.org. Details of her first solo CD of Bach’s Obbligato Violin Sonatas with John Butt can be found on the Linn Records website.

Artist spotlight - Bass-Baritone Jamie Wright

 

Jamie Wright

Our second featured artist for our forthcoming concert of Mozart and Haydn is Bass-Baritone Jamie Wright.  Jamie is also a graduate from the University of York and alumni of Yorkshire Bach Choir.  Recently awarded a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music he continues to study singing whilst singing with a number of ensembles. Jamie will be appearing in our performance of Mozart Requiem and Haydn Maria Theresa Mass as the bass soloist.



I began by asking Jamie to tell me a bit more about performing with Yorkshire Bach Choir:
Without a doubt, Bach Choir is one of the things about York I am most grateful for. While studying singing, it is easy to focus so much on future goals and to forget the reasons you decided to pursue it in the first place. Solo work is of course wonderful but there is a special something about performing fantastic music with a large group of people. It was that shared enjoyment and passion that really inspired me the most. I learnt a lot in my time in YBC, and am enourmously thankful for it.

I’m guessing you’ve performed Mozart Requiem before, what do you interests you about this particular piece?
I absolutely love the Mozart Requiem, It’s one of those pieces that you feel you can always go back to and find something you hadn’t caught before. Its a piece of core repertoire for a reason and its going anywhere any time soon, and as a first entry into a piece, not much beats the 'Tuba Mirum' for the Bass (Just as long as its not too slow!).

What do you most enjoy about performing in York?
It's a beautiful city and always a lovely place to come back to. The people are so much more friendly than in London too!

Musically, when have you felt the happiest?
Theres always that buzz when you first see an audience which is amazing. But I think for young singers it is so highly competitive, and easy to worry about whether your voice is ‘good enough’ or ‘in the right place’. When you step back and really just enjoy the music, special things happen and you can really connect with it without being hampered by anything else. My absolute favourite performances have been those when I can really clear my head and simply make the best music I can.

Who is the composer that you’d most like to meet?
J.S.Bach

What is your musical guilty pleasure?
A mixture of Classic Rock (Led Zeppelin mostly!) and electronic music.

Which leads me nicely into asking, which non-classical musician would you love to work with?
One of the great guitarists, Jimmy Hendrix or Jimmy Page I think. (We could have a trio called the three Jimmies!) They were the sort of performers who really understood the music they were making, I think popular music is missing that far more now.

When you’re not practising or performing, how else do you like to spend your time?
It’s easy to let singing take up every spare minute, particularly as a postgraduate. I love photography and its great to take a step back with something else that’s still creative.

How do you mostly listen to music?
Spotify. I know its hardly a great model of fairness for musicians but having that amount of music at your fingertips really is so invaluable, as a performer and just for something to get me through a long train journey! If theres music I know I will always listen to I will always download it or buy the CD.

What is your most treasured possession?
Embarrassingly, my phone. I use it for everything when I’m on the go.

If you hadn’t become a musician, what other job would you have liked to do?
Difficult one, I think as long as there is creativity involved I would be happy, I can’t imagine me doing anything behind a desk for too long! I did want to be a fighter-pilot for a long time, but my eyesight wasn’t good enough.

What keeps you awake at night?
Usually lines from whatever I’m learning at the time.

What would your super power be?
To be able to fly. (I’d save a lot on train fares.)

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Stephen Fry, John Cleese, Stephen Hawking, Meryl Streep and Boris Johnson

We look forward to hearing Jamie singing alongside other soloists Wendy Goodson (Soprano), Nancy Cole (Alto) & Jason Darnell (Tenor) in Mozart Requiem and Haydn Maria Theresa Mass with Yorkshire Bach Choir and Yorkshire Baroque Soloists on Saturday 14 March at 7.30pm at St Michael le Belfrey, York. 

Tickets are available in advance at the National Centre for Early Music by clicking here: bit.ly/1B5i263
 
Further details on Jamie can be found on his website: http://www.jamie-wright.co.uk/ 

Introducing the YBC Concert Series 2014/15

YBC Concert Series 2014/15

Rehearsals began in earnest last Friday for our 36th Season of concerts and once again it promises to be a vintage year of singing. Our season will encompass a range of music from cornerstones of the choral repertoire - like Handel: Messiah & Mozart: Requiem - to a focus on Tudor music including some rarely heard pieces by Taverner, Byrd and Sheppard.  

By kind permission of All Hallows, Walkington. Harry Harvey 1970

We launch our concert series on Saturday 1 November with a choral blockbuster in the form of Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis. For the singer, Spem is the kind of piece that is so good that you when you get to the end you want to go back to the beginning and sing it all over again.  Well, we hope it is the same for the listener so we will perform it twice; once at the beginning of the concert and once at the end.  We will even perform it in two different formations culminating in the ultimate surround sound experience.  Alongside Spem we mark All Saints Day with some motets in Byrd’s most vigorous polyphonic style including the extrovert ‘Laudibus in Sanctis’ (Byrd’s colourful setting of Psalm 150). In a more contemplative vein will be Byrd’s evergreen Mass for Four Voices which ends with the tranquillity of his sublime setting of ‘Dona Nobis’. The concert will be the first of two exploring music for Tudors.

Turning to the rest of the season, December will bring Messiah featuring an acclaimed line up of soloists as part of the York Early Music Christmas Festival.  No season would be complete without music by J.S. Bach, and we begin 2015 performing his motets, along with those of other members of the Bach family, will be the focus of a February concert. As well as accompanying us for Messiah, the verve and precision of the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists will join us in March for Mozart’s Requiem performed alongside Haydn’s joyous Theresienmesse. Following this, in May the second part of our Tudor survey gives a rare chance to hear another two masterpieces of the English Renaissance as we perform Taverner’s Gloria tibi Trinitas and the unique, beautiful In Media Vita by anniversary composer John Sheppard which opens with the haunting words ‘in the midst of life we are in death’.  Our season concludes with high drama in the form of that most tragic tale of a Carthaginian queen as we present a concert version of Dido and Aeneas.    

All our concerts are performed in the glorious surroundings of St Michael le Belfrey a historic church which is right in the heart of York beside York Minster.  

Link to our 2014/15 concert brochure: http://bit.ly/1s8Hrde

Details of concert 1 November 2014: http://bit.ly/1tw6qma

YBC Concert reminder service: http://bit.ly/1nbRxIJ

Contact details:
Twitter: @YorksBachChoir  
Facebook: Yorkshire Bach Choir
Email: marketing@yorkshirebachchoir.org