An evening of pianistic panache and bravura launches Birmingham Conservatoire's three-day mini-British Music Festival on Sunday 14th June, when pianist Mark Bebbington performs three unjustly neglected yet sparkling 20th century piano concerto rarities by Gordon Jacob, Malcolm Williamson and Doreen Carwithen in a unique triple-bill with the Innovation Chamber Ensemble (strings from the CBSO) under conductor Richard Jenkinson.
Bringing together a dazzling eclecticism of styles; expect energetic and toe-tapping rhythms in the Concertos for Piano and Strings by Jacob and Williamson, and, although a rarity on the concert platform, Carwithen’s Concerto is a work of immediate and lasting appeal, with a heart-stopping slow movement.
Internationally recognised for his revivals of British piano music, Mark will bring excitement and sparkle to these vivacious yet rarely heard works, recently recorded by these artists to unanimous acclaim on the SOMM label and hailed as ‘outstanding’ by International Record Review (Dec. 2014).
This concert is a joint collaboration between Birmingham Conservatoire and the British music promoter, Archery Concert Productions.
The Conservatoire’s British Music Festival will involve students and guest artists who will perform rarely-performed and contrasting works by Bridge, Howells, Holbrooke, Bowen, Ireland and Ferguson as well as by contemporary composers including Anthony Payne, Ian Venables and Robert Matthew-Walker.
Full details of all festival concerts are listed on Concert Diary.
Innovation Chamber Ensemble (ICE): Strings from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra www.richardjenkinson.com/page5.htm
The Innovation Chamber Ensemble was formed in 2002 by the principal string players of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to make a unique ensemble who strive for performances of the highest calibre. This group ranges in size to a maximum of sixteen string players and incorporates both enthusiasm and many years of experience from working with 'world-class' musicians such as Sir Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramo and Andris Nelsons. Due to its versatility ICE. is able to perform in venues that would be impossible for the ensemble's bigger cousin.
The group's repertoire is hugely diverse and includes standards by Bach and Vivaldi and encapsulates the great Romantic masters as well as the 20th Century giants of Bartok, Britten, Stravinsky and Schönberg. ICE is also firmly committed to the works of living composers.
The group's concerts have included several performances at Wigmore Hall and performances at CBSO Centre, Birmingham, St Davids, Fishguard and Deal festivals.
Mark Bebbington www.markbebbington.co.uk
The critical plaudits which have greeted Mark Bebbington’s performances and recordings have singled him out as a British pianist of the rarest refinement and maturity. Increasingly recognised as a champion of British music, Mark has recorded extensively for SOMM ‘New Horizons’ label to unanimous critical acclaim.
His most recent recording – three Concertos for Piano and Strings by Gordon Jacob, Doreen Carwithen and Malcolm Williamson – was MusicWeb’s ‘Recording of the Month’ and awarded an 'outstanding' accolade by International Record Review (Dec.2014). Previous recordings have included four British Piano Concertos with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a premiere recording of Arnold Bax’s Piano Concertino coupled with John Ireland’s Piano Concerto and ‘Legend’ with the Orchestra of the Swan, and premieres of Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia and William Mathias’s first two Piano Concertos with the Ulster Orchestra, all met with rapturous acclaim.
In addition to concerto recordings, Mark continues his John Ireland and Frank Bridge solo piano series; five consecutive discs have each earned him 5***** in BBC Music Magazine and International Piano summed up his achievement in May 2012:
“Bebbington’s revivals of British piano music are second to none; he could well be dubbed the concert pianists’ Richard Hickox. Bebbington has almost single-handedly demonstrated that 20th-century British piano scores have an exciting role to play in the concert hall and recording studio.”
All these CDs are initial releases in an ongoing series of recordings at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, where Mark has the distinction of becoming the first solo artist to record.
Over recent seasons Mark has toured extensively throughout Central and Northern Europe (both as recitalist and as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras), as well as the Far East and North Africa. Within the UK, he has appeared in concertos with the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestras, the London Mozart Players and the Orchestra of the Swan. He has featured both as soloist and recitalist on BBC Television and Radio and also on major European Television and Radio networks.
Mark studied at the Royal College of Music where he was a recipient of numerous international awards and prizes, including a Leverhulme Scholarship, a Winston Churchill Fellowship and the Ivan Sutton Recording Prize – the latter awarded to the one outstanding graduate of the combined London Music Colleges. He later studied in Italy with the legendary Aldo Ciccolini.
Mark’s programming demonstrates a commitment to the music of our time and he regularly includes contemporary composers as diverse as Takemitsu, Julian Anderson, John McCabe, Ian Venables, David Matthews, Pierre Boulez and Elliot Carter in his recital series.
Projects for 2014/15 include continuing releases for the Somm label of both twentieth-century British piano music and further concerto recordings with the Royal Philharmonic and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, appearances in major concert series and festivals both in the UK and throughout Europe (including a debut at the Husum “Piano Rarities” Festival in Germany and the Grand Theatre – Opera National de Bordeaux as part of the Bordeaux International Festival), concertos with the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic and BBC Concert Orchestras, a European tour with the Czech National Orchestra, and London solo recitals at the South Bank and St John’s Smith Square. In October 2014, Mark made a highly successful Carnegie Hall debut with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra.