conductor philip aslangul - sutton symphony …€¦ · conductor philip aslangul philip graduated...
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CONDUCTOR PHILIP ASLANGUL
Philip graduated from the Guildhall School of Music in 1990, where he studied cello, piano
and conducting with Stefan Popov, Carola Grindea and Alan Hazeldine respectively.
He has pursued a varied career; as a cellist, he has given recitals around the country with
the Burlington Duo and The Q Piano Trio, including a live radio broadcast in 1991.
He has worked as a freelance cellist appearing as principal with orchestras including the
National Pops Orchestra, The Camerata of London and The City Chamber Ensemble, and is
currently the sub-principal of the English Philharmonia.
As a pianist, Philip is in demand as a repetiteur and accompanist; he has worked with the
award-winning ladies choir 'Impromptu' for the past 12 years including a performance on
BBC2 in 2000 and BBC Wales in 2009; in 2006 he accompanied the Emerald Chorus on
Radio 3.
Philip is actively involved in youth music and conducted Kingston Schools Orchestra and
Kingston Young Strings between 1998 and 2004. He is currently conductor of Sutton Youth
Music Service's Young Musician's String Group, and is coach and stand-in conductor for the
Borough's orchestras. He is an examiner and Music Medal Moderator with the ABRSM and
also works for the OU as a mentor.
LEADER ANNMARIE MCDADE
Annmarie studied violin with Trevor Williams and Jonathan Carney and piano with
Raymond Fischer at the Royal College of Music.
Annmarie had many years leading touring shows and in West End shows such as Annie get
Your Gun, Aspects of Love, The Sound of Music, Oklahoma, The Producers and Company.
She spent nearly eight years in the West End production of Les Miserables (frequently
leading) until 2004. and worked with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, English Northern
Philharmonia, British Symphony Orchestra, Opera Della Luna , London Arts Orchestra
(principal 2nd), Camerata of London (principal 2nd & guest leader), Pro Arte Orchestra
(leader), London Philharmonic Youth Orchestra(principal 2nd & founder member) and
many others.
Solo performances include Mozart A major and G major and Bruch G minor concertos,
Beethoven's F major Romance, Bach's and Malcolm Arnold's Double Violin Concertos and
Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
Annmarie teaches in schools and privately - all ages , all abilities! She was Orchestral coach
for Berkshire Young Musicians' Trust, Beauchamp House International Music and drama
courses and ENCORE.
SOLOIST JOHN PAUL EKINS
In great demand as a recitalist, concerto soloist
and chamber musician, John Paul Ekins has
given performances throughout the UK and
Northern Ireland, and overseas in the Czech
Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Kuwait,
Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain and
Switzerland, and he has been broadcast on the
BBC, on Romanian national television and radio,
and on Polish television.
In 2009 he graduated from the Royal College of
Music with First Class Honours, where he
studied with John Barstow, and in the same
year he was awarded the James Anthony Horne
Scholarship by the Guildhall School of Music
and Drama to study with Charles Owen; he
graduated from the GSMD with Master's of Performance (Distinction) in 2011. He was the
recipient of a Music Education Award from the Musicians Benevolent Fund, and receives
generous support from Making Music, The Concordia Foundation, The Razumovsky Trust
and The Keyboard Charitable Trust.
He has performed as soloist at a number of prestigious venues in the UK and abroad,
including London's Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, St.
Martin-in-the-Fields, Fairfield Hall and Steinway Hall, Belfast's Ulster Hall, Bergen's
Troldhaugen, Birmingham's Symphony Hall, Bucharest's Athenaeum, Krakow's Florianka
Hall, Prague's Martinu Hall, and Zurich's Tonhalle. His concerto highlight thus far has been
his 2013 debut at The Royal Albert Hall, where he performed Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
alongside Southbank Sinfonia. He has also performed concertos by Mozart, Beethoven,
Schumann, Grieg, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich and Gershwin with orchestras throughout
the UK.
International Competition successes include some 19 awards, scholarships and prizes. He
was also accepted onto the prestigious Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme, and
recently he was delighted to have been selected to appear in Making Music's Concert
Promoter's Network Brochure 2013-14. He was also the only successful pianist in Making
Music's Young Concert Artists Competition 2012, and as such was a Recommended Artist
under Making Music's Philip & Dorothy Green Award scheme.
John Paul has been particularly honoured to be presented to Her Majesty The Queen and
His Royal Highness The Prince Philip at a Reception for Young Performers at Buckingham
Palace.
PROGRAMME
PRINCE IGOR OVERTURE BORODIN (1833-1887)
Several Russian composers of the 19th century started in professions other than music:
Rimsky Korsakov started as a naval officer, while Tchaikovsky began his career as a lawyer.
Only Borodin held a non-musical post for all his career. He was an industrial chemist who
thought of his music very much as a hobby, and regarded the founding of a School of
Medicine for Women as his greatest achievement.
He is now, however, most remembered for his music, where his greatest achievement is
surely his opera Prince Igor, even though he left it unfinished and in some confusion at his
death. Even the sequence of the acts was not entirely clear. It was completed and brought
to a performing version by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov - the hand of Rimsky can be
detected in the famous Polovtsian Dances, while the overture was rather more simply
edited by Glazunov.
The sleepy calm of the opening is disturbed by fanfares, leading to a bold Russian theme. A
sinuous oriental sounding clarinet tune is followed by a bold climax, and in turn followed
by a luminous horn solo. The remainder of the overture, which is based on these fine
melodies, does not need further description; just enjoy Borodin at his finest and most
fluent.
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1 TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
By 1866, Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) had been awarded a professorship at the
Moscow Conservatory which he held until 1877. During this time some of his most
cherished works were composed, including Swan Lake, and the famous Piano Concerto No.
1 in 1875. The creation of the concerto was tumultuous, and yet with all the sweat and
tears the work underwent, it has gone on to become a favourite in the repertoire.
Tchaikovsky was not a terrifically skilled pianist, and the solo writing is at times not
extremely well thought out. This is no matter, because the entirety of the whole concerto
sings of Tchaikovsky's uncanny talent for lyricism and freshness. The opening alone to this
wonderful piece, with its very memorable horn call and that soaring theme over pounding
piano chords, is enough to forgive any shortcoming. Certainly, for much of the twentieth
century, this piano concerto has been once of the most popular in the repertoire.
The first movement, Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso - Allegro con spirito, gives us the
grand introduction, and then a theme which is interrupted by a second theme before the
first is fully developed. This leads to a very ingenious double exposition. The first theme
comes back in some dramatic moments, interspersed with theme number two and
virtuosic shows in the solo piano.
The second movement, Andantino semplice - Prestissimo - Tempo I, is in song form and
brings more of Tchaikovsky's lyrical brilliance and cleverness. He allows us to languish in
the simple opening tune before the breezy prestissimo, a spirited French song which was
once sung by Desiree Artot to whom Tchaikovsky was briefly engaged, "Il faut s'amuser,
danser et rire." The closing moments return us to the lovely opening, but there are many
shades of the French tune mingled into the harmonization.
The finale Allegro con fuoco is set to balance the massive first and sighing middle
movements and is in sonata form. Set like a rondo finale, it begins with a gregarious
Ukrainian dance tune, ripe with syncopations. That melody is then modified in a virtuosic
and searing piano flurry over which a flowing and serene tune drifts. These themes are
developed thoroughly and then bow out for a maestoso tutti. The stage is then set for the
true finale, quick paced and full of flourish, using the dance tune.
INTERVAL
SYMPHONY NO. 5 SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
Shostakovich has aroused much interest as a composer since he belonged to the
generation of artists that worked entirely in post-revolutionary Soviet Russia. He knew no
other world and consequently his music has been subject to special scrutiny and great
conjecture.
Born in 1906 in St Petersburg, he studied piano and composition at the renamed Leningrad
Conservatoire from 1919 onwards. His first works passed by the Soviet regime without
comment but his opera of 1936, Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District, aroused the wrath of
the authorities and was subject to a stinging attack in Pravda – the state-owned newspaper.
Some suggested that Stalin himself had penned the article that threatened Shostakovich’s
career and life in no uncertain terms. In fact, Shostakovich was “interviewed” by the
predecessor of the KGB (the NKVD) and fully expected to be exiled, like many of his
professional colleagues, to a labour camp. In a farcical turn of events, Shostakovich’s
interrogator was himself liquidated in one of Stalin’s purges; wisely Shostakovich heeded
the warning he’d been given all the same and made amends with this symphony.
Shostakovich won many awards from the State including the Stalin Prize, Hero of Socialist
Labour and Russia’s highest civilian award, the Order of Lenin. Many of his later
symphonies nominally praised the achievements of the October Revolution or victories in
the Second World War. This leads some to suggest he conceded too much of his artistic
freedom to the state and showed unnecessary loyalty to the regime. However,
Shostakovich’s sympathisers recognise that most of all he wanted to be left alone to
compose and was willing to acquiesce to the state on the surface if this allowed him to do
this. The fact that everyday people take such solace from his work hints that it is more
open to interpretation that the party intelligentsia might have liked.
Shostakovich worked on his 5th Symphony for 3 months of 1937 and it is clearly seen as his
response and apology to the totalitarian regime for the Lady Macbeth debacle. Luckily for
him it received universal acclaim at its première in Leningrad in November 1937. Though it
seemed to please the party elite there are a few quirky bits in the symphony that might
suggest Shostakovich was poking fun at the regime through his musicianship.
A rising and falling theme presented in close canonic imitation in the strings establishes the
brooding character of the first movement. Soon, however, it is countered by a more
hopeful subject introduced by the violas over a gently rhythmic accompaniment. This
second theme seems to establish itself beyond recall during a sweetly melodious duet for
flute and horn near the end of the movement, but the initial material returns to close the
first portion of the symphony on a somber D-minor tonality.
The scherzo-like Allegretto strongly resembles similar movements in the symphonies of
Gustav Mahler, which Shostakovich greatly admired. It gives way to a deeply elegiac slow
movement, all sorrow and solace.
As in the Fifth Symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler, the finale reverses the emotional
direction of the work from pathos to triumph (sincere or otherwise). Thematic reference to
the first movement, which appears midway through the piece, provides another point for
comparison between these Fifth Symphonies. But here the similarities end. Shostakovich’s
music, except for a quietly contemplative central episode, is at once martial and dance-like
in character, its unbridled energy more reminiscent of Tchaikovsky than of any Austrian or
German composer.
NEXT CONCERT
SATURDAY 28th MARCH 2015 7.30 pm
ST ANDREWS CHURCH, CHEAM
Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival Overture
Glazunov: Saxophone Concerto
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6
SUTTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
The Sutton Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1946 and generally gives three concerts in
the borough per season. Soloists have included professional musicians living locally,
talented students and members of the orchestra.
We are grateful for the continuing financial support from the Humphrey Richardson Taylor
Charitable Trust, our President, Patrons, and our loyal audience, donors and friends. We
would like to thank All Saints Church for the use of the Church buildings for this concert
and their provision of interval refreshments, and to Homefield Preparatory School for use
of their premises for rehearsals.
SSO OFFICERS
President
Vice President
Conductor
Chairman
Louis Rutland
Elizabeth Angel
Philip Aslangul
Carol Disspain
Treasurer
Librarian
Secretary
Concert Manager
Richard Ellis
Will Harwood
Ann Arber
Douglas Lloyd
PLAYERS
1st violins
Annmarie McDade
Paul Dickman
Liz Evans
Katie Evans
Dave Larkin
David Giles
Natalia Wierzbicka
Ben Richardson
Hazel Crossley
2nd Violins
Steve McDade
Sarah Hackett
Carol Disspain
Fiona Glasscock
Henrik Jensen
Ann Arber
Izabela Przekop
Violas
Sarah Robson
Vince Turner
Rebecca Pedrick
Sue White
Carolyn Brett
Maxine Burton
Lwsi Jones-Angove
Cellos
Niall Trainer
Marguerite Pocock
Penny Bull
Frances Burton
Alex Clark
Vibeke Hansen
Lorraine Lenaghan
James Pedrick
Betty Langmaid
Basses
Ed Davey
Philip Johnson
Flutes & Piccolo
Richard Ellis
Juliet Porter
Sam Wade
Oboes
Cynthia Betts
Doug Lloyd
Clarinets
Will Harwood
Laura Drane
Brenda Johnston
David Cox
Bassoons
David Silvera
John Wallace
Janet Martin
Contrabassoon
Rachel Hurst
Horns
Simon Davey
Caroline Auty
Janice Barker
Chris Pocock
Trumpets
Paul Martin
Michael Ahearn
Joseph Matthews
Trombones
Roger Willey
Phoebe Thomas
Emma Bridgland
Tuba
Mark Probert
Timpani
Will Burgess
Percussion
Helen Garner
Cameron Reed
Joe Belton
Gareth Roberts
Harp
Harriet Adie
Piano
John Paul Ekins