The Department of Music Hartley Loop Orchestra, directed by Benjamin Oliver, return with another extraordinary performance project featuring British composer Richard Ayres’ melodramatic masterpiece, No. 42 ‘In the Alps’ – an animated concert (2008), for soprano and orchestra.
The solo part will be sung by leading, professional soprano Juliet Fraser, who plays the part of a girl who is stranded on top of an un-climbable mountain peak as a young baby and is then taught to sing by the mountain animals. Like any self-respecting melodrama, the text and music combine to depict or imply a wide ranging theatrical adventure, in this piece starting at the Creation (or the big bang), a lonely existence, scenes of rustic village life, some carpentry, many mountain goats, unrequited love, and ending in a quest destined to fail.
The first half will feature Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals (1886) with piano soloists Professor David Owen Norris and Southampton finalist Verity Brooks, as well as a brand new commission by Masters composer Zoe Sones.
This evening concert, presented by the Department of Music in association with Turner Sims, is free for all University of Southampton Students and under 18s to attend, with standard tickets for staff and guests priced at £10. Please contact Turner Sims’ Box Office on 023 8059 5151 or book online on the Turner Sims website.
