NEW PATHS PAYS TRIBUTE TO THE LADIES

Wed 20th March 2019
New Paths 2019

In just under 3 weeks time, New Paths will appear in Beverley for the 4th successive year.  With a programme which includes music (from early music to classical to popular), lectures and food, Festival Director, Roland Deller is especially pleased it contains some pieces which are very rarely heard and at least one which is so new, no-one has heard it yet!

Every year the festival includes music written and performed by outstanding musicians who happen to be chromosomally XX.  Among the many works by female composers on the programme this year are pieces by three extraordinary women, all of them trailblazers at a time when a career as a composer was pretty remarkable for a woman:

Rebecca Clarke’s passionate Viola Sonata, performed by Lena Eckels and Libby Burgess in our Saturday coffee concert, ‘A Golden Era on Prince Consort Road’. 
Beautiful songs from Clairières dans le ciel by Lili Boulanger, sung by Rowan Pierce in our opening night concert, ‘Inspirations’. 
Piano music by Clara Schumann, performed by renowned pianist Martin Roscoe in our closing concert, ‘Clara’s World’.

 All of these three concerts take place within the beautiful surroundings of St Mary’s Church with its superb acoustic.  A sight and a sound to behold.

Among the many fine artists in the line-up is Katie Bray who was recently selected to represent England in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2019 competition, perhaps the most significant classical singing competition in the world.  Don’t miss the chance to hear Katie in Beverley in a few weeks.  She appears at three concerts in the festival:

In the closing concert, ‘Clara’s World’, where she sings songs by Brahms and Schumann.
In our Saturday night gala concert, ‘A Night at the Movies’, in the East Riding Theatre.
In ‘Notes from Afar’, where she sings Robert Schumann’s last song cycle, his Mary Stuart Songs.  For the text, Schumann took Mary’s own poems.  They span 26 years in the life of this tragic figure.  She became Queen of Scotland at the age of six days (at the same time as St Mary’s was being rebuilt following the fall of the tower), widowed at eighteen, imprisoned for almost twenty years, and eventually beheaded by Elizabeth I.

Find out more about New Paths and book at https://www.newpathsmusic.com/2019-events/

 

Just Beverley