SEEKING THE SHADOWS:
the voice of the viola
SATURDAY 3RD JULY 2021 - 1 PM
MEZZO LOTTE BETTS-DEAN WITH ROSALIND VENTRIS, VIOLA,
PIANIST JOSEPH HAVLAT AND SPECIAL GUEST COMPOSER AND
VIOLIST SALLY BEAMISH
A programme exploring the especially warm blend of the mezzo voice and the viola. Music includes Bridge, Rubbra, Marx, Bliss, Brahms’ Zwei geistliche Gesänge, and Sally Beamish’ s Buzz and Prelude and Canon for two violas, with the composer performing alongside Rosalind.
LOTTE BETTS-DEAN
SALLY BEAMISH
ROSALIND VENTRIS
JOSEPH HAVLAT
Australian mezzo Lotte makes a return visit here to sing with her musical friends. Performing predominantly in the UK and Australia, she has been praised by the Guardian for her ‘irrepressible sense of drama and unmissable, urgent musicality’. Lotte won the 2019 Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform alongside Joseph Havlat. She is a keen concert curator and her wide-ranging repertoire encompasses contemporary music, art song, chamber music, opera, early music and non-classical collaborations.
Renowned (and now local) composer and violist Sally Beamish makes a guest appearance performing in her own compositions for two violas. Sally won the Award for Inspiration at the British Composer Awards in 2018, and in 2020 was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours. Her recent concerto, Distans, for Janine Jansen and Martin Fröst, was co-commissioned by the Concertgebouw, LSO, Oslo Philharmonic and the Swedish Radio Orchestra. She returned to performing in 2015, when her daughter, luthier Stephanie Irvine, made her a viola, and in 2018 she left Scotland to live in Brighton and has joined the South Downs Chamber Ensemble with Nancy Cooley and Sebastian Comberti.
Rosalind’s career was launched when she won the Tertis Competition aged seventeen. She recently recorded her first solo album of works for solo viola written by women. Rosalind regularly performs with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, and is the violist of flute, viola and harp ensemble Trio Anima. She has collaborated with Mitsuko Uchida, the Arcanto Quartett, Gerhard Schultz and Tabea Zimmermann, and is Artistic Director of the Cowbridge Festival.
Joseph was the winner of the keyboard section of the Royal Overseas League music competition. He is an avid composer, passionate about contemporary music, and is a founding member and artistic director of contemporary music collective Ensemble x.y