Saturday 26th November 2011 7.30pm

Reid Concert Hall

Edinburgh University Music Society

Sinfonia Michael Graham conductor Sibelius Karelia Suite Nielsen Helios Overture Sibelius Symphony No. 3 Tickets: £8/£5

Jean Sibelius

Publicity Managers Alex Priestley Gareth Dennis

publicity@eums.org.uk

Edinburgh University Music Society

The University of Edinburgh Alison House

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Chorus & Symphony Orchestra Winter Concert Series

Saturday 19th November 2011 7.30pm

Greyfriars Krik

Elgar Dream of Gerontius

Russell Cowieson conductor Neil Metcalfe chorusmaster

Colette Ruddy mezzo soprano

David Hamilton tenor Peter Thomson baritone

Welcome to Edinburgh University Music Society’s winter concert series! I would like to thank you all for coming tonight and supporting us with your attendance. Dream of Gerontius is a wonderful work by Edward Elgar and we have thoroughly enjoyed the music and the challenge of working on it. The piece is not easy to put together and we are proud to perform it for you tonight after just ten rehearsals. We owe so many thanks to Neil Metcalfe (our chorusmaster) and Russell Cowieson (our conductor) for their passion, perseverance and commitment to both ensembles throughout this semester. We are delighted to have three outstanding soloists joining us tonight in our performance. Thanks to Colette Ruddy, David Hamilton and Peter Thomson for singing with us tonight. I should mention and thank anyone who was involved with the BIG SING ear-lier in the month. EUMS joined Bethany Trust in their ‘Stop Homelessness’ campaign to raise money for the charity. The event was a great success! We had a fantastic number of singers all day on the Saturday and put on a fabu-lous concert of Handel’s Messiah the same evening. Bravo to all those in-volved, especially Georgine Hendry and Zoe Greenfield, the primary organis-ers of the event. Next week, on Saturday 26th November, the EUMS Sinfonia will be perform-ing a fabulous program of Scandinavian music in the Reid Concert Hall at 7.30pm. We would love to have you there once more supporting us once more, especially Michael Graham, our new Sinfonia conductor. I hope you enjoy tonight’s performance of Dream of Gerontius as much as we do performing it! Emily Goad EUMS President 2010/11

Welcome

Welcome 2

Seth Armitage Richard Beatty Robert Foster Mark Hughes Hope Johnston Russell Keat Andrew Mason Stephen Pritchard Christian Quale Timothy Ronald Weijian Teng Chien-Min Tu Bruce Whitehead

Cody Beard Nick Botterill Cashel Brown Gareth Dennis Gordon Edwards Daniel Fisher Gogo Gaultier

Paul Grant Ben Horne Sam Inman Louis Keal Cameron Kuronon-Stewart Andrew Laing Gordon Macleod Caithan Moore Andrew Murray William Norman Guy Richardson Guy Rughani Eric Thomas Wolodja Wentland Gordon Wilson Bertram Zank Vincent Li

List correct at time of going to press

11 The Chorus

On Stage Chorus

Tenor Semichorus

Bass

Rebecca Fisher Emily Goad Vera Halvorsen Laura Reading David Gould Ellen Love Kathryn Rowan Amy Sattin William Flynn Tim Martin Jonty Poward Mark Symonds Tom Cartwright Alastair Mailer Dan Pyzer-Knapp Jason West

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Tilly Alexander Hallworth Helen Bashforth Jessica Bennett Isabel Benson Yvonne Berg Fiona Cameron Rowan Clark Ruth Clarke Jen Coombs Alienor Cros Hannah Demblon Heléna Edmondson Bettina Flechtenmacher Jessica Flett Silje Graffer Josephine Graham Katharine Gritten Chloe Haigh Rachel Harvey Chelsea Haward Cathy Hawley Serena Hillery Katie Hoban Philippa Hooper Caroline Hosking Kat Huxter Annemarie Klein Amanda MacLeod Chantelle Manson Katy Marwick Anna Mattinson Alice McLeish Ailsa Milton Suzannah Molloy Eilidh Munro Emma Nevell Zoe Pattinson Maria Pitzchke Sofie Poder Sarah Rundell Luzia Schürmann Katy Sheen Elise Marie Solsnes Laura Stirling Chloe Summerfield Laura Tamm

Clare Taube Anthi Tiliakou Alison Wheatley Klara Zak

Sarah Aldous Louise Bennett Lili Bird Amy Bostock Helen Cambrook Kirsty Chilman Kathy Christie Ruth Cowie India Cox Catherine Cumming Elizabeth Davis Diana de Cabarrus Sheila Dickson Flora Donald Fiona Drysdale Fanni Dunderberg Danielle Falkner Georgina Fraser Emily Freeman Hannah Frodsham Anna George Hannah Hagemann Jenny Heaney Anna Higgins Rebekah Hyndman Zohra Jibb Rosalind Johnson Zoe Johnston Adrian Kane Thea Koutsoukis Kat Kunkel Mary Langsdale Kate Lyle Bethan MacKenzie Eileen Maguire Friederike Mansfeld Harriet Mark Emily McFarland Amy Murray Rowan Palmer Madeline Petrow

Ugne Pikutyte Alice Radley Wendy Raine Charly Raymond Liana Romaniuk Siobhan Rutherford Becky Steven Coco Tamlyn Emily Thiede Ariane Timm Rachel Tooley Georgina Werkmeister Jane Whelan Beatrice Wickens Lois Wilson Sophie Wright

10 The Chorus

On Stage Chorus

Soprano

Alto

3 The Artists

Russell Cowieson studied on a McFarlane scholarship at the Royal Scottish Acad-emy of Music and Drama and the Guild-hall School of Music in London. As a per-former he has appeared with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, RSNO Wind Ensemble, Carol Kidd, Carla Bley and the Stan Tracey Quartet. He is musical director of the EUMS Sym-phony Orchestra and the Scottish Na-tional Wind Orchestra. His work with the EUMS has gained much praise. Their concerts regularly sell out and have seen them tackle a wide range of challenging repertoire. Deeply committed to education, Russell was the first recipient of the ‘Yamaha Instrumental Teacher of the Year’ award. In 2007 Russell was appointed Artistic Director of the International Wind Festi-val held at the RSAMD. He has served regularly on the faculty of the Royal Northern College of Music. Since 2009 he has been a member of faculty at the internationally renowned Canford Summer School of Music as teacher of conducting. Russell has worked with Young Sinfonia, the RNCM Junior School Orchestra, RSAMD Wind Orchestra, RSAMD Junior School, adjudi-cator and examiner to the RSAMD, Scot-tish Schools Orchestra Trust, John Currie Singers and Orchestra, Cambridge Holiday Orchestra, Cambridgeshire Youth Wind Orchestra and Dundee Schools Symphony Orchestra.

Neil Metcalfe Choirmaster

Russell Cowieson Conductor

Neil Metcalfe read music at Edin-burgh University before training as a répétiteur, vocal coach and conduc-tor in the Opera School of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. After some time on the mu-sic staff of Scottish Opera he began a freelance career which has taken him to opera houses in Australia, Ger-many, the United States and North-ern Ireland. He has also worked with a number of touring companies in-cluding Bolshoi Opera, Kirov Opera, Catalan National Theatre, and Deutsche Oper am Rhein. As a performer, he has appeared in venues as far afield as Greenland and Australia and works in a wide number of genres from musical theatre to chamber music. As an accompanist he has recorded for the BBC, and as a continuo player he has recorded with Dunedin Consort on Linn Records. He is presently musical director of a number of companies including Edin-burgh Grand Opera, Edinburgh Music Theatre Company, Opening Night Productions, the Maltings Theatre, Balerno Theatre Company and Green Room (a new touring musical theatre company for Scotland).

4 The Artists

Dundee born mezzo-soprano Colette Ruddy studied singing with Patricia MacMahon at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glas-gow. Winner of the LASMO Staffa Music Award, Crabb Trust Award, Wolffson Scholarship and Balfour Moray Foundation Scholarship, Colette is also a Samling Scholar. She was one of the first graduates to study and research Scottish music and in particular the singing of tradi-tional singers as part of her honours degree. Operatic roles include Ramise Arminio (London Handel Festival), L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (Limburgs Symphonie Orkest) and Die Fleder-maus (Les Artienne, Stockholm), and she has also recorded and broadcast on TV and radio. Colette Ruddy’s extensive concert engagements have taken her to ma-jor venues throughout the UK, Europe and Canada working with orchestras including the RSNO, Scot-tish Chamber Orchestra, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, London Mo-zart Players, London Sinfonietta, Orchestra of the Age of Enlighten-ment and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

David Hamilton Gerontius

Colette Ruddy Angel

Scottish Tenor, David Mulvenna Hamilton trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama as both a singer and flau-tist. He has enjoyed a long and distin-guished international career at the highest level in the fields of opera, oratorio and concert rep-er to ire. Fo llowing many years based in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the Far East, he was in 2000 awarded the Australian Centenary Medal for services to Music. For the past three years, David has worked mostly in opera houses in Germany (returning this evening from Lubeck where he has been performing the role of Tamino in Mozart's Magic Flute) and goes back to Australia next week to prepare for the role of Herod in the Strauss op-era Salome at the Sydney Opera House.

Patrick Darley† Michael Sawaryn

Bass Trombone

Finbarr Maguire

David McCreath Caitlin Callahan Tim Farrow Ben Williams

Iain McLarty

9 The Orchestra

On Stage Symphony Orchestra

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Edit

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Pri

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Gareth Dennis

Alex Priestley

Copycat Scotland 0131 622 6060

Emma Donald* Ailsa Ramage Vicky Carmichael Beatrice Langford-Powell Johanna Krahmer Ghazaleh Moham-madi-Zaniani Rebecca O'Doherty Yusuke Takahashi Emilie Rousseau Jessica Hailstone Stelios Serghiou

Violin 1

Sarah Carson† Eoin McCrossan James Sanderson Iona Roberts Frances Haggarty Katherine Berloius Anna Rea Rosie Taylor Carys Fleming Kirsten Kramers Emma Moore Amy Whittaker Emily McKie Marlene Roehe Joanna Reed

Violin 2

Simon McKenzie† Marjolein Don Patrick Lucas Sophia Lyons Juliet Sanderson Eilidh Clark Reg Harrison

Viola

Clara Stanghellini† Tim Cais Alice Chalkley Rosalind Ford Robin Nelson Katy McCalister Rachel McKean Beth Waters Christopher Grieve Jennifer Usher Yvonne Hastie

Cello

Samantha MacAdam-Subedi

Harp

Bass

Julie Aitken† Eline Bos

Flute

Marion Carracher† Emily Bates

Oboe

Chris Schrecker † Michael Devlin

Clarinet

Anne Pawsey† Lizzie Wastnedge

Bassoon

William Jamieson† Joe Boyd Georgine Hendry Richard Bush

Horn

Marc Howarth† Alex Priestley George Parry

Trumpet

Trombone

Paul Williams

Tuba

Dan Glover

Timpani

† denotes section leader * denotes orchestra leader

List correct at time of going to press

Hannah Rankin

Contrabassoon

Jenny Gilbertson James Nimmo Joe Shaw

Percussion

Lexie Welbourne

Bass Clarinet

Organ

Katy Cavanagh

Cor Anglais

President

Emily Goad Secretary

Dan Glover Treasurer

Jen Coombs Symphony Manager

William Jamieson Symphony Librar-ian

Vicky Carmichael Chorus Manager

Dan Pyzer-Knapp Chorus Librarian

Ruth Cowie Accompanist

Cormac Maguire Thanks to

EUMS Gold Mem-bers and support-ers, staff of Grey-friars Kirk, St. Peters Church, Alison House and the Reid Hall, Iain Mclarty, Roderick Bryce, Rebecca Westley, our conductor, our cho r u smas t e r , the soloists and all of our per-formers.

Symphony Orchestra is the Music Society’s fully audi-tioned orchestra. Rehearsing every Monday evening we perform mainly 19th and 20th Century large-scale classical music to a high standard with our excellent conductor Russell Cowieson. We are the biggest orchestra at the university comprising of about 80 players. Recently the orchestra has performed very challeng-ing repertoire including Rimsky Korsakov’s Sche-herazade and a fantastic performance of Shostakovich’s stunning Tenth Symphony. The op-portunity to collaborate with the EUMS Chorus every two years gives our players the opportunity to play some fantastic music that would not always be open to other orchestras. We very much hope you enjoy tonight’s perform-ance! William Jamieson EUMS Symphony Orchestra Manager 2011/12 Chorus prides itself on being one of the best non-auditioning choirs in Edinburgh, performing a varied array of choral repertoire from Carmina Burana to Walton’s Te Deum. Chorus meet on Tuesday evenings under the dynamic direction of Neil Metcalfe, and once a year we join forces with one of the EUMS orchestras. In performing Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius we are stepping into unknown territory; definitely our most challenging but rewarding semester’s work so far! As a society, we aim to make music more accessible, participating in many different community events, such as Christmas carolling and our education pro-jects, performing and informing children from local schools. We hope you enjoy the performance tonight. Thank you for supporting EUMS! Dan Pyzer-Knapp EUMS Chorus Manager 2011/12

8 The Society

Edinburgh University Music Society A Word From Our Managers

5 The Artists

Peter studied both piano and sing-ing at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. On graduating, he pursued a singing career which saw him performing both nationally and internationally. Operatic roles included: Marcello (La Boheme), Escamillo (Carmen), Germont (La Traviata) and Tonio (I Pagliacci). His music theatre experience saw him perform in the world premier of Tornrak, a piece inspired by Inuit culture at the Banff Arts Centre in Canada, a Scottish Folklore Opera called The Wolf of Badenoch, and The Martyrdom of St. Magnus which he has also recorded. Peter has performed throughout Britain in such oratorios as Messiah, Elijah and Requiems by Mozart and Faure. He also performs the lighter baritone repertoire at corporate functions. Peter is married with two children and teaches in Edinburgh as well as being a sought after vocal coach with the National Youth Choir of Scotland.

Peter Thomson Priest

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The Dream of Gerontius is Edward Elgar’s choral masterpiece, com-posed in 1900 for orchestra, chorus and soloists. It is based upon a poem written by Cardinal John Henry New-man in 1865 and was composed for the Birmingham Music Festival of 1900. Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) is con-sidered one of the greatest English composers of all time and Gerontius is widely recognised as his finest choral work. The son of a violinist and organist, Elgar studied both the violin and piano from a young age. However he did not have any formal musical training, unlike other com-posers of the time. Elgar felt like an outsider for most of his life: his catholic faith excluded him from the protestant country he lived in and he was aware of his modest upbringing and lack of compositional training. Despite this, he gained valuable mu-sical experience through conducting various musical ensembles and began

composing from an early age. He did not receive recognition for his works until his forties when he wrote the Enigma Variations which became an international success. Based on Elgar’s growing reputation, in 1898, he was commissioned to write a choral work for the 1900 Birmingham Music Festival. Elgar was well acquainted with Cardinal New-man’s poem as he had received a copy of it as a wedding present. Elgar condensed the poem making it dramatically tight and divided it into two parts. The premiere, under rehearsed, was not a success. The chorus, all ama-teurs, struggled with the complexity of the work and the soloists were underprepared. However, critics saw past the poor first performance and praised the music. In 1901 Gerontius was performed in Germany to a much higher standard and was a resounding success. This led to an Elgar boom in

6 The Programme

Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934) The Dream of Gerontius (1900)

Part I:

Prelude Jesu, Maria – I Am Near To Death Rouse Thee, My Fainting Soul Sanctus Fortis, Sanctus Deus Proficiscere, Anima Christiana Part II:

I Went To Sleep It Is A Member Of That Family But Hark! Upon My Sense Comes A Fierce Hubbub I See Not Those False Spirits But Hark! A Grand Mysterious Harmony Thy Judgment Now Is Near I Go Before My Judge Softly And Gently, Dearly-Ransomed Soul

7 The Programme

Germany where many of his works were performed. Gerontius, how-ever, did not succeed as quickly in England where Anglicans did not like the openly Catholic text. Anglican clerics objected to performances of Gerontius in Anglican cathedrals and Elgar had to modify the text before it was performed in Worcester Cathe-dral in 1902.

Cardinal Newman’s poem is intensely Catholic and was inspired by the death of a friend. The poem tells of an old man, Gerontius, and his jour-ney from his death-bed into purga-tory. Elgar, like so many composers before him, dedicated the work to God: “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam” is written at the top of the score. The work begins with an orchestral prel-ude. Elgar, heavily influenced by Wagner, introduces the main themes of the piece here in a similar style to Wagner’s opera Parsifal. Gerontius is on his death bed praying, “Jesu, Maria – I am near to death”, with a priest and assistants (the Chorus). His prayers for deliverance are sup-ported by the assistants. Gerontius declares his faith, “Firmly I believe and truly” before submitting, finally at peace, “Novissima hora est”. The priest blesses Gerontius and his soul is sent forward to the next world by the Priest and the assistants “Go in the name of Angels and Archangels”.

Part Two is also introduced by an orchestral prelude. Gerontius awakes from death, “I went to sleep, and now I am refreshed.” He meets his Guardian Angel and they journey towards the judgement throne. They pass choruses of demons and angels. Finally, Gerontius comes before God to be judged. The Angel of the Agony pleads his case and upon the appear-ance of God, characterised by an awe-inspiring orchestral climax, Gerontius is carried by the Angel into Purgatory and the choir of angels sing the final hymn “Praise to the Holiest in the height”. The orchestral writing in Gerontius can be considered some of the best of Elgar’s. He scores the work for a large Romantic orchestra which plays continuously and manages to write both in a symphonic style and also one reminiscent of light recitative. Elgar’s choral writing is intricate; utilising a semi chorus for thinner textures and dividing the choir in two for the demon’s chorus. Elgar wrote on the last page a quota-tion from John Ruskin, “This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another: my life was as the va-pour and is not; but this I saw and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory”. This is a fitting comment on the Dream of Gerontius which firmly places Elgar at the fore-front of British classical music.

Vicky Carmichael

There will be an interval between

Parts I and II, with a bake sale provided.

“…Gerontius is consid-ered one of Elgar’s best works, firmly placing him at the forefront of British classical music…”