Elgar’s Violin Concerto is a work both intimate and grandiose, universal and personal, confessional yet private. Festival composer Steve Elcock’s epic tone poem, Wreck, has been described as “some of the best orchestral music by a British composer in the last fifty years.” And to bring this year’s gala concert to a thrilling conclusion, Elgar’s rousing Cockaigne, inspired by the sights, sounds and smells of London Town.
Saturday 1st June at 7:30pm
Worcester Cathedral
Worcester WR1 2LA
Or call Worcester Theatres on 01905 611427.
English Symphony Orchestra
Kenneth Woods conductor
Zoë Beyers violin
April Fredrick mezzo soprano
Sir Edward Elgar Violin Concerto, op. 61
Steve Elcock Wreck, op.10
Sir Edward Elgar Cockaigne (In London Town) op. 40
Sir Edward Elgar Pomp and Circumstance Marches 4 and 1
Elgar’s Violin Concerto is unique in its epic scope, virtuosic demands and emotional range. Composed at the height of his formidable musical powers and at the peak of his international fame, Elgar’s Violin Concerto is a work both intimate and grandiose, universal and personal, confessional yet private. Throughout his career, Elgar often found inspiration in the unattainable attractions of various muses. None of these ‘might have been’ loves seems to have affected him as much as the woman he called “Windflower”, who inspired this greatest of all violin concertos. In a festival which celebrates the Origins of Inspiration, surely love lost or unfilled has inspired more great music than anything else in the human condition.
Composer Steve Elcock owes a degree of his late-in-life success as a composer to a midi mock-up made in 2014 of his epic tone poem, Wreck, which the English Symphony Orchestra finally premiered in Malvern Theatres in 2022. When critic Martin Anderson, owner of Toccata Classics, heard the work for the first time he called it, simply “”some of the best orchestral music by a British composer in the last fifty years.”
If love and longing were the most frequent and important source of inspiration for Edward Elgar, surely place and landscape runs a close second. The Elgar Festival is unique in the world in letting audience members immerse themselves in the countryside, hills, villages and forests which informed so much of Elgar’s music. But Elgar’s ability to find inspiration in place was not limited to rural Worcestershire and Herefordshire. And like his Italy-inspired tone poem, In the South, his rousing Cockaigne, which brings this year’s festival to a thrilling conclusion, was inspired by the sights sounds and smells of Elgar’s beloved London Town.
South-African born Zoë Beyers has established a reputation as one of the finest and most versatile violinists based in the UK, and performs worldwide as soloist, chamber musician, director and orchestral leader. In 2020 she was appointed Leader of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Zoë appears regularly as guest leader of the Hallé, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestras, the CBSO, the Philharmonia, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Orquesta Nacional de España at the invitation of Maestro Juanjo Mena. Since 2017, Zoë has been the concertmaster of the English Symphony Orchestra, collaborating closely with them as director and soloist.
As a chamber musician Zoë appears with the Hebrides Ensemble, Nash Ensemble, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and the London Sinfonietta. She has recently joined the renowned Dante Quartet as their first violinist. Zoë has a passionate interest in education, teaching at the Birmingham Conservatoire and coaching violinists and ensembles at the start of their careers. She is proud to be involved in ARCO, a distance learning collaboration between Birmingham Conservatoire and students in deprived areas of South Africa.
Hailed as ‘astonishing and luminous’ (Bachtracks), soprano April Fredrick loves words and stories and the way that they fire composers’ imaginations and the audience’s imagination in turn, connecting us with those who have come before.
She is a frequent soloist with orchestras across the UK and a champion of new work on both the concert and opera stage. She is an Associate Artist with the English Symphony Orchestra and frequent soloist with the Nottingham Harmonic Choir, which has come to feel like singing with friends as well as colleagues.
Recent work includes the soprano solos in a forthcoming recording of Grace Williams’ Missa Cambrensis with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Adrian Partington, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and the world premiere of Philip Sawyers’ oratorio Mayflower on the Seas of Time with the ESO under Kenneth Woods, and Mahler Symphony no. 4 and Strauss’ Vier Letzte Lieder at the Colorado MahlerFest (also under Kenneth Woods).
Upcoming work includes Haydn Nelson Mass with the Wimbledon Choral Society at Cadogan Hall and a recording of Donald Fraser’s Ancient Chinese Lyrics with the English Chamber Orchestra.