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The Wagner Society

REGISTERED CHARITY 266383

FOUNDED 1953

President: Dame Gwyneth Jones DBE, Kammersängerin

Vice President: Sir John Tomlinson CBE

Chairman: Jeremy D Rowe B.Ed.

Events & Wagner B L O G

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 MUSIC IN THE HEART OF FULHAM

We have a music project, under the general heading of MUSIC IN THE HEART OF FULHAM, which uses professional performers and aims at very high standards. More recently we have ventured into the field of Wagner's operas, and have already staged individual acts from Walkure and Parsifal which have been well received. Our latest effort is much more ambitious:  at the end of August/beginning of September we are performing  Rheingold in its entirety.  You can read much fuller details than I have given you by visiting www.fulhamopera.com

www.fulhamopera.com

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THE JON VICKERS EXHIBIT

  NEW YORK -- An exhibit celebrating the career of the great tenor Jon Vickers is being planned to open in early 2013 in Toronto, Canada. A Website for the exhibit, www.jonvickers.org , is now available on the Internet.
 The exhibit will include many fascinating photos and documents collected by
Jeannie Williams in research for the highly praised biography "Jon Vickers: A Hero's Life" (UPNE 1999/2007). She is organizing the exhibit; a major Toronto arts institution has agreed to present it, contingent on funding. Information on making donations is included on the Website. A comment section offers memories of  Vickers' remarkable performances from admirers.
  "I found so many great photos and other items for which there was no space in the book," said Ms. Williams, who lives in New York. "There also will be audio/video components, and we hope to have showings of the only documentary made on Mr. Vickers, "A Man and His Music," created by Richard Bocking for the CBC."
 The Advisory Panel for the exhibit includes Martin Bernheimer, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic; Dr. Frances Henry, president, Toronto Wagner Society; tenor Ben Heppner; William Littler, Toronto Star music columnist; Ezra Schabas, music author and administrator; and Nathalie D. Wagner, president, Wagner Society of New York.
  Ms. Williams was interviewed on the CBC Radio 2 program, "Saturday Afternoon at the Opera," hosted by Bill Richardson and featuring four Vickers operas in July, with commentary from major music figures including Sir Colin Davis, Marilyn Horne, Mignon Dunn, Gwyneth Jones, Sherrill Milnes and Lotfi Mansouri.  
  "Jon Vickers: A Hero's Life" was called "among the most impressive books I have ever read about an individual singer" by the New York critic Peter G. Davis. "A vivid portrait of the most exciting tenor in the second half of the 20th century," Andrew Porter wrote in Opera magazine. The book was reissued in paperback in 2007.
  Mr. Vickers retired in 1988, and will turn 85 on Oct. 29, 2011.
 
Contact:
Jeannie Williams
jfidelio15@aol.com
212-721-5332

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Furtwangler Recordings

The president of the Venezuelan Wagner Society has launched a new website for selling downloads of new masterings, with much improved sound, of Furtwängler's finest interpretations, mostly dating from the war years.

The recordings available at this time include the Bayreuth 1943 Meistersinger, as well as the Meistersinger Prelude from 1942 and Tristan Prelude and Liebestod (Orchestral version) also from 1942. 

These new masters are receiving glowing reviews.  We thought they might be of interest to you.

The link is: www.furtwanglersound.com

Asociación Wagner de Venezuela
Tels: +58412-3212808
asowagner@gmail.com

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www.TheWagnerBlog.com

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Leipzig Wagner Festival events

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Monday 5 September 2011

MUSIC CLUB OF LONDON

Dame Eva Turner Remembered

                                                                                                                BY LINDA ESTHER GRAY

Monday 5 September  2011 at 6.30 for 7.00pm at

49 Queen's Gate Terrace London SW7

(nearest underground:  Gloucester Road)

Dame Eva (1892 to 1990) was probably this country’s first international operatic superstar. Born in Oldham, she studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, later  mastering many of the great roles such as Santuzza, Elisabeth, Elsa, Brünnhilde, and the title roles in Aida, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Thaïs.  The role for which she remains most famous was Turandot which she sang around the world. In 1959 she was appointed Professor of Singing at the Royal Academy of Music, a position she held for ten years, and for many years until her death, she was the President of the United Kingdom Wagner Society. Surprisingly, no biography has ever appeared until now. This first biography A Life on the High Cs was written, researched and published by her close friend and former pupil Linda Esther Gray who sang many of Dame Eva’s favourite roles. Linda will be discussing her new book about Dame Eva’s life and career and the talk will be interspersed with many rare archive recordings of the legendary soprano. For more information on the book please see  website:  http://www.dameevaturner.com

Tickets:  £15 (members); £20 (guests) - to include wine and nibbles        

Please complete the form provided below, detach and send with SAE

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An Evening with Eva Turner and Linda Esther Gray :  Monday 5 September 2011

To:  Mrs Frances Simpson, 3 Hunt Close, Morden Road, London SE3 0AH

I enclose a cheque (made payable to The Music Club of London) for:

(  ) tickets @ £15 - members and/or  (  ) tickets @ £20 - guests  with a SAE

TOTAL:  £

 NAME(S):  …………………………………………………

ADDRESS:    ……………………………………………………………………………

 TEL NO:        ……………………  EMAIL:     ................................................................

Tickets will also be available at the door,  subject to availability

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11th September 2011

The Northern Wagner Orchestra

are pleased to announce the cast for their annual Wagner event - this year ""Tannhäuser - at Leeds University on September 11 2011 at the Riley Smith Hall.
 

The  Northern Wagner Orchestra (NWO) was established in 2005 to provide musicians a rare opportunity of studying challenging and exciting orchestral repertoire with professional vocalists. NWO’s first project was Wagner’s Ring Cycle, which they finished in full with complete casts of professional Wagner singers by 2008. In 2009 the orchestra tackled Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”, Wagner’s “The Wesendonck Lieder” and a selection from Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck”.  Last year Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde” was the obvious next step for this ambitious orchestra and in 2011 once more professionals, students, teachers and other talented musicians will join together with professional singers to work on Wagner’s great choral opera “Tannhäuser” under conductor Michael Williamson.  This event is supported by the Wagner Society.

Further information is available on our website www.northernwagnerorchestra.com

Cast List                

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Friday 7th October   2011

The Musical Brain

Arts, Science & the Mind 

2011 Conference Friday 7th October      

Why Music? Is Music Different from the Other Arts?

at the Institute of Neurology,  33 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG

8.30     Registration opens

9.45     Introduction – Prof. Michael Trimble

There have been debates going back for over 2,000 years about the similarities and differences between art forms, and several writers at various times have venerated music as superior to the rest. This symposium will explore these views from a multidisciplinary perspective, from the philosophical to the therapeutic, and from the psychological to the neurological. The relevance of the latter, especially as revealed to us with modern brain imaging, will be the subject of discussion, questioning the current role of neuroscience for philosophy and aesthetics.

10.00   Can there be a Science of Musical Understanding?

Prof. Roger Scruton

We speak of understanding and misunderstanding music; music is a form of communication; and the habit of sitting still and listening while music plays is one that demands an explanation, especially at a time when hardly anyone does it. What form should such an explanation take, and is neuroscience likely to have a part in shaping it? And what bearing would the explanation have on our understanding of other art forms?

11.00 Coffee

11.20   The Neurohistory of Art: how Neuroscience Illuminates Individual Inspiration

Prof. John Onians

Neuroaesthetics tends to look to neuroscience for help in the study of universals, such as beauty.  Neurohistory uses neuroscience to help to explain those behaviours of individuals and groups that are exceptional, from the creativity of particular artists and musicians to the responsiveness of particular viewers and listeners.    The talk suggests ways in which brain scanners and electron microscopes offer insights into the most mysterious activities of the human mind.  It also argues that in doing so, far from reducing the mind’s mystery, they greatly enhance it. 

12.20   What Classical Musicians can learn from Other Arts about how to Build Audiences

Prof. John Sloboda

There has been a well-documented decline in attendance at classical music concerts at the same time as audiences for other art-forms (e.g. visual art) have never been healthier.  This lecture reviews some of the psychological factors that impact on audiences when experiencing music and other art forms, and outlines some recent initiatives, which encourage musicians to build a stronger relationship to audiences by learning from other arts, particularly drama.

1.20     Lunch break

2.30     The Purpose of Art and the Role of Music in Therapy

Professor Raymond Tallis  and Prof. Nigel Osborne

 Art, like human consciousness, is gloriously useless. It has no biological function but rather is an attempt to come to terms with, even to heal, the wound in the present tense, which is in part the result of the fact that ideas and experience, content and form are in conflict. It is an expression of the unique freedom of human beings to make their own sense of the world. The therapeutic implications of this for those who have been damaged by life or by illness are both self-evident and ambivalent.
 

3.30     Can Music Portray Happiness and Sadness?

Stephen Johnson with Ian Ritchie, Ian Brown and the Sacconi Quartet

4.30     Tea

4.50     Debate and Open Forum – Neuroimaging is Important for our Understanding of Aesthetics and our Responses to Art

Profs: Michael Trimble, chairman, John Onians, Nigel Osborne, Roger Scruton, John Sloboda, and Ray Tallis 

at  St Pancras Parish Church 

(10 minutes walk from Institute of Neurology, Queen Square)

19.00   Concert introductory talk:  Ian Ritchie and Stephen Johnson

19.30   Concert

Sacconi Quartet / Ian Brown piano

Haydn: String Quartet Op77 No1
Schubert: Andantino from Piano Sonata D959
Barber: Adagio
interval
Beethoven: Scherzo from Piano Sonata Hammerklavier Op106
Elgar: Piano Quintet

Certificates of hours of attendance for CPD or portfolio purposes can be provided on request.

 Speakers’ Biographies

Stephen Johnson, Writer, Music Journalist and Broadcaster, regular presenter of BBC Radio 3’s ‘Discovering Music’, his publications include works on Bruckner, Mahler and Wagner.

Professor John Onians, Emeritus Professor of World Art at the University of East Anglia, his recent work has been instrumental in the establishment of Neuroarthistory as a distinct set of methodologies.

Professor Nigel Osborne, Composer, Reid Professor of Music, founder and Co-director of the Institute for Music in Human and Social Development (IMHSD), University of Edinburgh, pioneer in the use of music therapy to help children traumatized by war.

Ian Ritchie, Director of the City of London Festival, has led the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Opera North and St Magnus Festival; was advisor to English and Scottish Arts Councils; was instrumental in establishing a Music Therapy centre for children in Mostar; is a trustee of Musicians without Borders, Opera Circus and The Musical Brain.

Professor Roger Scruton, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Washington DC, a senior research fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, visiting research professor at St Andrews University, Scotland, and the author of over thirty books

John Sloboda, Research Professor, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where he leads their "Understanding Audiences" research programme.  He is also Emeritus Professor at Keele University, where he founded Europe’s only MSc in Music Psychology and is author of over 100 publications in this area.

Professor Raymond Tallis, formerly Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester and a consultant physician in Health Care of the Elderly in Salford, he is the author of a wide range of published works, including fiction, poetry and the philosophy of mind.

Professor Michael Trimble, formerly Professor of Behavioural Neurologist, and at the Institute of Neurology, London, now holding emeritus status, he teaches and lectures on neuroanatomical concepts relevant to understanding behaviour including the cerebral basis of artistic experience.

Bookings

The ACE Foundation, Babraham, Cambridge cb22 3ap

You may also book by phone on: 01223 499707

Or book online at: www.acefoundation.org.uk/courses

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The Wagner Society is a registered charity (Number - 266383)