There Was a Child by Joan Rodgers / Toby Spence

Jonathan Dove

Joan Rodgers / Toby Spence

There Was a Child

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Signum Classics
UPC: 0635212028520
Catnr: SIGCD 285
Release date: 01 July 2012
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Label
Signum Classics

UPC
0635212028520

Catalogue number
SIGCD 285

Release date
01 July 2012

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

There Was A Child

There Was a Child Since my childhood, music – especially choral music – has given my life meaning, so commissioning a piece to celebrate my son Robert’s life seemed cathartic – if a little ambitious. Jonathan Dove was the obvious choice of composer for me. I had been struck by his theatre music over the years and in the 1990s worked with him on his first concerto commission; his strong feeling for community connected with my need for this piece to be universal. Robert’s father, Richard Van Allan, had been rehearsing Jonathan’s first main-stage opera, Flight, at Glyndebourne in the summer of 1999. Robert, aged 19, drowned while snorkeling in Thailand on 21 June that year. Jonathan never knew Robert but we spent much time talking about him, and There Was a Child has surpassed all my expectations. Jonathan has completely captured Robert’s spirit. He was a warm, kind, thoughtful, bright, gregarious and fearless person who grasped every opportunity that presented itself. His great compassion, true love of mankind and adventurous spirit continue to inspire all of us who knew and loved him. There Was a Child, a modern oratorio, uses a sequence of poems to trace a young life from birth, through childhood to young manhood. Robert would have been delighted that such a joyous piece of music should have been composed to honour him and all the young people who, like him, have been taken from this world too soon.

When Rosemary Pickering asked me to write a piece to celebrate the life of her son, we both immediately felt it should involve singing. Singing with other people is one of the most joyful activities I know, so this had to be a choral work. And music celebrating young life should include the sound of children’s voices. The idea of mother and son suggested two soloists: soprano and tenor. Accompanying these different voices would be all the colours of the symphony orchestra. The Norfolk and Norwich Festival and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra joined in this commission, of 2009, to create a large-scale piece of communal music-making. I started looking for words for all these voices to sing. I found poems by Charles Causley and Langston Hughes describing the wonder of birth; by Wordsworth, Keats, Traherne and Emily Dickinson conjuring up different aspects of childhood – naughtiness, carefree playfulness, youthful adventures. My choices were informed by stories Rosie and Richard had told me about their son Robert – particular stories about a unique individual, but which also conjured up archetypal images of youthful liveliness, mischief and outdoor escapades. Most of the texts are celebratory, but there is no avoiding the terrible moment when a young life is cut short in the middle of adventure. Shakespeare evokes the grief of a mother for her child, and Tichborne sings of death coming too soon. I did not want the piece to end here, and it was important for Rosie to remember all the joy her son’s short life brought her. Walt Whitman’s poem There Was a Child went Forth is a radiant vision of a child absorbing everything around him and connecting with the whole world.

Artist(s)

Toby Spence (tenor)

An honours graduate and choral scholar from New College, Oxford, Toby Spence studied at the Opera School of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In concert, Toby has sung with the Cleveland Orchestra under Dohnányi, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic under Rattle, the San Francisco Symphony under Tilson Thomas, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Pappano, the Rotterdam Philharmonic under Gergiev, the London Symphony Orchestra under Davis, the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Nezet-Seguin, the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Dudamel, and at the Salzburg and Edinburgh Festivals under Norrington and Mackerras. Toby sang an acclaimed Madwoman in Britten’s Curlew River for the Edinburgh Festival, where he has also appeared in recital. Other recitals include LSO St Luke’s, Opéra de Lille and the Wigmore Hall, and he has made numerous recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, BMG, Philips, Collins, Linn Records, Hyperion and EMI. For the English National Opera, Toby has sung Fenton, Ferrando, Tamino, Candide, Paris (La Belle Hélène) and Faust, and for the Royal Opera, Kudryash, Simpleton (Boris Godunov), Ferdinand (The Tempest), Count Almaviva, Ramiro and Tom Rakewell. He has also sung with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Bavarian State Opera, the Paris Opera, the Monnaie, Brussels, the Netherlands Opera, the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, the San Francisco Opera, the Santa Fe Festival, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Metropolitan Opera. This season, Toby will make his debut with the Vienna State Opera as Ferrando, he sings Lensky (Eugene Onegin) and Vere (Billy Budd) for ENO and David (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) for the Royal Opera. His future opera engagements include Tom Rakewell for the Theater and der Wien, Don Ottavio and Tito for the Vienna State Opera, Tamino and Tito for the Bavarian State Opera and return visits to the Metropolitan Opera. Concerts and recitals this season include the London Symphony Orchestra under Adès, BBC Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Davies, CBSO under Nelsons and the Deutsche Oper under Donald Runnicles. He performs recitals at Opéra de Lille and the Edinburgh Festival.

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Joan Rodgers (soprano)

Joan Rodgers studied at the University of Liverpool and the Royal Northern College of Music. In 1981 she won the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Scholarship. Joan Rodgers made her professional debut in 1982 as Pamina in a new production of Die Zauberflöte at the Festival of Aix en Provence, following which she rapidly established herself throughout Europe. International operatic engagements have included Paris (Pamina and Zerlina with Barenboim and Ponnelle, Mélisande, Susanna, and Donna Elvira with Solti); Munich (Ginevra in Ariodante); Florence (Susanna with Mehta); Vienna (Mitridate with Harnoncourt), Zurich, Lyon, Turin, Brussels (Countess, Fiordiligi, and Hero in Beatrice et Benedict), Geneva, Frankfurt and Oviedo (Governess in The Turn of the Screw), Netherlands Opera (Countess in Figaro and Blanche Dialogues des Carmélites), and The Metropolitan Opera, New York (Pamina). In the UK Joan Rodgers has performed at all the major opera companies including in the highly acclaimed performances of the Governess and Duchess in Thomas Adès’ Powder Her Face at the Royal Opera House. Joan Rodgers enjoys an equally successful career as a concert and recital singer and engagements have included regular appearances with conductors such as Mehta, Barenboim, Salonen, Harnoncourt, Bruggen, Eschenbach, Elder, Sir Andrew Davis and Rattle. She has appeared regularly in London with all the leading orchestras and has been a frequent guest at the BBC Proms, including the internationally-televised Last Night in 1988. Overseas engagements have included tours of the USA and Spain with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Esa-Pekka Salonen and a nationwide tour of Australia. Her London recitals have attracted the highest critical acclaim and other recent recital engagements have included the Musikverein in Vienna, Paris, Moscow, Budapest and New York. Joan Rodgers received the RPS award as Singer of the Year for 1997, the 1997 Evening Standard Award for outstanding performance in opera for her performance as the Governess in the Royal Opera’s production of The Turn of the Screw and an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Liverpool University in July 2005. She was awarded the CBE in the 2001 New Year’s Honours List. In 2010 Joan Rodgers took up the post of ‘International Chair in Singing’ at Royal Northern College of Music.

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City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Under the baton of its Music Director, the young Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is the flagship of musical life in Birmingham and the West Midlands, and one of the world’s great orchestras.
Based in Symphony Hall, it gives over 150 concerts each year in Birmingham, the UK and around the world, playing music that ranges from classics to contemporary, film music and even symphonic disco. With a far-reaching community programme and a family of choruses and youth ensembles, it’s involved in every aspect of music-making in the Midlands. But at its centre is a team of 75 superb professional musicians, and a tradition of making the world’s greatest music, right here in the heart of Birmingham.
That tradition started with the Orchestra’s very first symphonic concert in 1920 – conducted by Sir Edward Elgar. But it was when it discovered the young British conductor Simon Rattle in 1980 that the CBSO became internationally famous, and showed how the arts can help give a new sense of direction to a whole city. Rattle’s successors Sakari Oramo and Andris Nelsons helped cement that global reputation, and continued to build on the CBSO’s tradition of flying the flag for Birmingham.
On 4 February 2016, the CBSO announced the appointment of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla as its Music Director, with effect from September 2016. Her artistic plans with the CBSO range widely from Mozart and Haydn to 20th century classics and works by living composers. Coming from the strong choral traditions of the Baltic states (her father is a choir conductor in Lithuania), and following her role as Music Director of the Salzburg Landestheater, she is also leading opera projects in Birmingham and working closely with Simon Halsey CBE on projects with the CBSO’s internationally renowned choruses.
As it approaches its centenary in 2020, the CBSO, more than ever, remains the beating heart of musical life in the UK’s Second City.

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CBSO Chorus

CBSO Youth Chorus &

CBSO Junior Chorus

Simon Halsey (conductor)

Simon Halsey is a sought-after conductor of choral repertoire at the very highest level and an ambassador for choral singing across the world. He is the Chorus Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Choruses, and the Choral Director of the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. He is also Conductor Laureate of the Rundfunkchor Berlin (the permanent chorus partner of the Berlin Philharmonic) where he has been Principal Conductor for 14 years. Since becoming Choral Director of the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in 2012, Halsey has been credited with bringing about a ‘spectacular transformation’ (London Evening Standard) of the LSC. Simon Halsey is Professor and Director of Choral Activities at the University of Birmingham, where he directs a postgraduate course in Choral Conducting, in association with the CBSO. He is in great demand as a teacher at other universities, and has presented masterclasses at top universities such as Princeton and Yale. In 2011 Schott Music published his book and DVD on choral conducting, Chorleitung: Vom Konzept zum Konzert, as part of its ‘Master Class’ series. Halsey was awarded The Queen’s Medal for Music 2014 for his influence on the musical life of the UK, and was also made Commander of the Order of the British Empire in The Queen’s Birthday Honours 2015. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to choral music in Germany, Halsey was also given the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2011.

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Composer(s)

Jonathan Dove

JONATHAN DOVE is the most performed living opera composer in the UK. His over 30 works in this genre come in all shapes and sizes and form the backbone to his considerable oeuvre, many of which have also been performed in Europe, America and Australia. Much of his other music is palpably narrative and dramatic in conception, and covers a great range of subject matter, from contemporary to legendary, fairy-tale to sexual politics, catering to all audiences from children to adult.
Hailing from a family of architects, Dove was playing the organ in his local church at the age of twelve, and read Music at Cambridge, studying composition with Robin Holloway. Graduating from the music staff at Glyndebourne, he first gained prominence with his chamber versions of operas, including The Magic Flute, The Ring of the Nibelung, and The Cunning Little Vixen for Birmingham Opera ’s touring productions, then became music advisor at the Almeida Theatre in North London, writing a plethora of theatre scores for them, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was Artistic Director of the Spitalfields Festival from 2001-6.
Awarded a CBE in 2019 for services to music, he has also won the 2008 Ivor Novello Award, the 2006 Royal Philharmonic Society education award and four British Composer Awards. His 1998 Glyndebourne commission opera Flight has received 40 productions worldwide, and his television opera When She Died was seen by 2.5 million viewers.
He has written extensively in many genres, he is a prolific and popular choral composer, has orchestral works to his credit, several oratorios, many song cycles and much chamber music, including four string quartets.
Recent and forthcoming works include operas Marx in London (2018), Itch (2023), and forthcoming Im 80 Tagen um die Welt (Zürich, 2024) and Uprising, for Glyndebourne (2025), Northern Lights - an accordion concerto, Gaspard’s Foxtrot and Gaspard’s Christmas for narrator and orchestra, two song cycles, three string quartets and more.

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