Wednesday lunchtime organ concert series continues on Wednesday 10 November 1.10 -1.150pm with a recital by Kevin Bowyer to compliment the week of Taize Services taking place in Glasgow for COP26
Date: Wednesday 10 November 2021
Time: 1.10 - 1.50pm
Venue: University Memorial Chapel
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/wDwfCNYEw2E
- We ask that all audience members wear masks during the event, except where exempt.
Programme:
Le Banquet Celeste (1928) Olivier Messiaen
(1908-1992)
Dedication – To The Ascended Master Light Keith Barnard (b. 1950)
Postlude pour l’office de complies (1929) Jehan Alain (1911-1940)
This is a programme of reflective music designed to tie in with the week of Taizé services. All three pieces are quiet.
The programme opens and closes with well-known works written by two celebrated French composers in the 1920s. Messiaen’s earliest published organ work is a meditation written entirely in his second Mode of Limited Transposition, familiar to us today, but stark and new to those who heard it for the first time nearly a hundred years ago. Alain’s hypnotic Postlude sets fragments of plainsong against a pulsing background.
Keith Barnard is a prolific composer, also dedicated to exploring the relation between music, colour and healing.
He resides in London, and is also a poet.
He has been performing his music in many countries since the early 80s.
He studied composition at Trinity College of Music with the late Arnold Cooke, himself a pupil of Paul Hindemith.
He has been a private music teacher since 1972. Composed numerous scores and taken part in many concerts and recitals in England and overseas.
Interested in the relationships in music, healing, and colour.
Performed by other musicians in the UK, USA, and Italy. Keith has performed in the UK, USA, Thailand, Canada, Russia, Germany, Greece, Romania, Austria. and has composed works for piano, organ, chamber, vocal, choral, orchestral music including 8 symphonies. There are commercially released CDs and many other recordings made.
Keith has composed poetry in differing styles and has read his work on many occasions.
Carson Cooman: “The music of English composer Keith Barnard explores a deep emotional terrain through a personal musical language forged through years of intense spiritual exploration. His mystical style draws together diverse influences, including the traditional Romantic pianistic tradition represented by Chopin and Liszt, the coloristic French impressionism of Debussy and Ravel, the 20th century mysticism of Alan Hovhaness and, above all, the music and philosophy of Alexander Scriabin. As an active pianist himself, Barnard has frequently appeared in concert throughout Europe performing his own works for piano. His music for the instrument ranges from short pieces up to “The Secret Tones of the Divine Spheres,” a one-movement piano work of nearly three hours duration. Besides piano music, he has written a chamber opera, four orchestral symphonies, concerti for cello, piano, and organ, and numerous chamber works. In the recent years, at the suggestion of organist Carson Cooman, he has composed a series of organ works including, “The Purest Silence of the Divine,” an evening-length organ cycle.”
The Wednesday Series 2021
November 17: Stephen Pinnock
Prelude in C minor, BWV 546/i J S Bach
Pièces de Fantaisie, Suite 2 Louis Vierne
November 24: Kevin Bowyer (L’Orgue Mystique, Suite No. 1, by Charles Tournemire)
Funding by the Ferguson Bequest.
Professor Thomas Ferguson (1900-1977), Henry Mechan Chair of Public Health
(1944-64), bequeathed his estate to the University, with the instruction that the money should be used to foster the social side of University life.
First published: 8 November 2021
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