Guildhall Symphony Orchestra & Chorus join with acclaimed alumni to open Autumn term events

Thursday 27 September, 7.30pm, Barbican Hall
Wednesday 28 November, 7.30pm, Barbican Hall

On Thursday 27 September, the Guildhall Symphony Orchestra & Chorus begin the new academic year on the Barbican Hall stage with a performance of Verdi’s powerful choral masterpiece, his Requiem, alongside acclaimed alumni singers.

A landmark choral work of the Romantic era, the 1874 piece has the hallmarks of Verdi’s opera writing with added magnitude, scored as it is for four soloists, double choir and orchestra with eight trumpets. The soloists, conducted by James Blair, are soprano Gweneth-Ann Rand, mezzo-soprano Susan Bickley, tenor Gwyn Hughes Jones and bass Derek Welton, and the chorus-master is David Vinden.

Guildhall Symphony Orchestra returns to the Barbican Hall on Wednesday 28 November under the baton of Takuo Yuasa, with two more masterworks of their era: Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

Stravinsky’s revolutionary ballet score famously caused a riot at its premiere and Mahler’s much-loved symphony features in its last movement the exquisite song Das himmlische Leben, offering a dream of ‘the heavenly life’.

James Blair is Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra. He studied in London with Bernard Keeffe and Sir Adrian Boult, with accolades including the Ricordi Conducting Prize and an Italian Government Scholarship to study with Franco Ferrara in Siena and Venice. James has been associated with the YMSO since 1971 and has established it as the UK’s leading training orchestra. He has worked with every major choir in England including the London Symphony Chorus, London Philharmonic Choir and the Huddersfield Chorus and with many of the UK’s major orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Scottish Chamber, BBC Philharmonic and Scottish Symphony Orchestras and London Mozart Players. He has toured the US, where he has given concert series with the San José, Sacramento, Kansas City, Delaware and Colorado Springs Symphony Orchestras. In opera he has conducted at the Dublin Grand Opera and the Athens Opera House. He had a close association with Yehudi Menuhin, assisting him in Spain and Russia working with the Orchestra Sinfonica de Euskadi in San Sebastián and the St. Petersburg Camerata. He was awarded the MBE for his services to music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2016.

David Vinden has been involved with music all his life, as a choirboy at Truro Cathedral, studying singing at the Royal Academy of Music with Joy Mammen as well as orchestral conducting with Maurice Miles. A choral scholarship to St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, enabled him to continue with further studies at Royal Holloway College. He was a co-founder of the Collegium Musicum of Windsor and its resident conductor, giving performances in Windsor and Eton. After teaching for some years, he went to the Kodály Institute in Hungary and returned to take up a position at the Purcell School, later becoming its Director of Music in 1987. He conducted many concerts on the South Bank, taught at Birmingham Conservatoire of Music, Trinity College, London and now lectures at Guildhall School where he is a group tutor, teaches Kodály musicianship and conducts the Wind, Brass & Percussion choir. He co-founded the Kodály Centre of London and has produced over 30 publications for use in Kodály education. He is currently an elected board member of the International Kodály Society and lectures worldwide on the importance of Kodály musicianship and well as choral conducting. He works frequently with the Szilvay brothers and the Colourstrings Foundation. He is collaborating with Cyrilla Rowsell on the series of primary school music curriculum books called ‘Jolly Music’ and has also co-authored a book on ‘Harmony through Relative Solfa’ with Mónika Benedek.

Takuo Yuasa regularly performs throughout Europe and the Far East and in recent seasons has conducted at the Grand Théâtre de Provence in Aix, London’s Royal Festival Hall and Barbican, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Frankfurt’s Alte Oper, Stuttgart’s Liederhalle and the Sibelius Hall in Lahti, Finland. Born in Osaka, where he studied piano, cello, flute and clarinet, he is deeply imbued in western culture, having left Japan when he was eighteen to study in the US at the University of Cincinnati, where he completed a Bachelor Degree in Theory and Composition. He went on to study conducting with Hans Swarowsky at Vienna’s Hochschule, Igor Markevich in France and Franco Ferrara in Siena, before becoming assistant to Lovro von Matačić. His commanding versatility is recognised by orchestras around the world, and he has performed with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw National Philharmonic, Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra and many more. He has also had an extensive recording career as a Naxos artist, with Sydney Symphony Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and others. Takuo Yuasa received the prestigious Iue Cultural Award in October 2007, for his exceptional contribution to music and his international artistic achievements. He is Professor Emeritus of the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music.

Tickets

27 September: £15, £10 (£5 concessions), available from the Barbican Box Office.
28 November: £15, £10 (£5 concessions), available from the Barbican Box Office.