Anthony Howell - A Life in Poetry and Music

Welcome to Anthony Howell - A Life in Poetry and Music!

Anthony Howell, poet

Alessandro Cortello, tenor

Riccardo Pes, cello

Ralph Woodward, piano

music by Nyman, Pradal, Field, Schumann, Vaughan Williams, German

This event revolves around the poetry of Anthony Howell, the core of the programme being the pieces based on his poems composed by Michael Nyman and Battista Pradal. Nyman wrote these songs as part of the cycle Body Parts (2010), while Pradal composed his suite of pieces for the unusual, but fascinating, tenor & cello duo in 2019. Pradal's songs were dedicated to Cortello and Pes, who performed them in London and in Italy. The rest of the programme is also related to Howell's work: Field and Schumann had a key role in his exploration of the relationship between tango and classical music, while the songs by Vaughan Williams and German are based on poems by R. L. Stevenson and R. Kipling, who Anthony admires.

The concert will also include some of Anthony Howell's poems, read by the author himself.

This event is organised with the support of the Wong family.

Anthony Howell (born 1945) is a poet, novelist and performance artist. A former dancer with the Royal Ballet, his first collection of poems Inside the Castle was brought out in 1969. Howell was founder and director of The Theatre of Mistakes, which created notable performances worldwide in the seventies and eighties – at venues such as the Paris Biennale, the Sydney Biennale, the Paula Cooper Gallery, the Tate and the Haywood. His poems have appeared in The New Statesman, The Spectator and The Times Literary Supplement and his articles on visual art, dance, performance and poetry in many journals and magazines including Artscribe, Art Monthly, The London Magazine, and Harpers & Queen. In 1997 he was short-listed for a Paul Hamlyn Award for his poetry. His versions of the Silvae of Statius have been well received and Plague Lands, his versions of the poems of Iraqi poet Fawzi Karim, were a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for 2011. Howell is currently curating The Room, a space for dance, performance, poetry and visual art in Tottenham, London. He is a respected teacher for the tango and dances with Lindi De Angelis – as Tango Schumann, they perform tango to classical music in art galleries such as Ikon, Birmingham and Modern Art Oxford, as well as dancing for the Robert Schumann Bicentennial in Zwickau in 2010. Amongst his latest publications: Incomprehensible Lesson (versions of poems by Fawzi Karim); Consciousness (with Mutilation); Songs of Realisation; The Step is the Foot: Dance and its Relationship to Poetry; The Distance Measured in Days.

https://anthonyhowelljournal.com/

The Italian tenor Alessandro Cortello started his vocal training with Alfredo Mariotti and later studied with Claude Thiolas and Luciana D'Intino. He graduated in Piano at the Conservatorio Frescobaldi in Ferrara and in Singing at the Conservatorio Tomadiniin Udine. He also studied Composition. He won two editions of the Concorso Cameristico C.A.Seghizzi in Gorizia: in 2005 in the Sacred Music category, and in 2007 in Chamber Singing category.As an opera singer he has performed the following roles: Alfredo (Traviata, Verdi), Count Almaviva (Barbiere di Siviglia, Rossini) Ernesto (Don Pasquale, Donizetti), Nemorino (Elisir d’Amore, Donizetti), Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly, Puccini), Pong (Turandot, Puccini), Rodolfo (Bohéme, Puccini), Jacopo Foscari (I due Foscari, Verdi), Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor, Donizetti), Hoffmann (Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Offenbach). He took part in the Rai Italian Television productions of Rigoletto conducted by Zubin Mehta with Placido Domingo in the title-role and Cenerentola, conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti. As a chamber music singer he performed Schubert's and Schumann's most important Lieder cycles, besides songs by Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Mahler, Strauss, Berg, Fauré, Duparc, Ravel, Poulenc, Rachmaninov, Britten and Copland, in duo with several pianists and with Trio di Parma. As a concert singer he performed the solo roles in Requiem by Mozart (with Orchestra Filarmonica della Fenice, Venice, conducted by Enrico Bronzi), Liszt (with Orchestra of Teatro Verdi, Trieste), Dvořak and Verdi, in Haydn's Missa in Tempore Belli (conducted by Antonio Ballista), Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle, Beethoven's Mass in C (Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge, conducted by Ralph Woodward) and in Orff's Carmina Burana. Alessandro sang in many Italian houses and halls, and in Austria, Croatia, UK, Greece, Czech Republic, Russia, and in Dublin for Bloomsday2019, when he performed at the National Library of Ireland and at Áras an Uachtaráin for President Higgins.

https://alessandrocortello.blogspot.com/

Riccardo Pes is an Italian cellist and composer. He graduated with outstanding from the Royal College of Music, London on the Artist Diploma course, under Melissa Phelps. His curiosity has led him to experiment with various sources of technology, such as the loop-station, and he is committed to finding new ways of bringing classical music to younger generations. As a soloist, Riccardo has played the Schumann Cello Concerto with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Tartini’s Cello Concerto in A major with I Solisti Veneti conducted by Claudio Scimone, the Cello Concertos by Nicola Fiorenza and Nicola Porpora with the Marchigiana Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Marco Feruglio. His chamber music collaborations have included performances with Mario Brunello, Giovanni Sollima, Gilles Apap, Madeleine Mitchell, Thomas Zehetmair. He has played numerous solo recitals in prestigious venues, such as the Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall, Kings Place, The Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre, Blackheath Halls, Royal Academy of Arts, Schloss Laudon in Vienna, Sala Sinopoli in Rome, and Teatro Della Tosse in Genoa. He has been invited to perform at important festivals such as the Venice Biennale, “AHA! Festival” in Gothenburg, Triennale of Milan, and The Sounds of the Dolomites. Riccardo also studied at the Conservatory of Venice and at the Accademia Nazionale of Santa Cecilia in Rome with Giovanni Sollima, graduating with distinction. He has attended several masterclasses held by Frans Helmerson, Ludwig Quandt, Franz Bartolomey, Johannes Goritzky, Gustavo Tavares. Riccardo has studied composition with Battista Pradal and Mario Pagotto. His music is published by the Sonzogno Music Publisher in Milan, and it has been performed at venues including the Southbank Centre London during the festival “Nordic Matters”, the “Summer Exhibition” at the Royal Academy of Arts, Venice Biennale, Triennale of Milan, and Teatro Valle in Rome. He recorded the cello and piano sonatas by G.A.Fano and L. Sinigaglia with Pierluigi Piran for the label TACTUS.

https://riccardopes.weebly.com/

Ralph Woodward grew up in Durham, and studied Music as Organ Scholar at Queens’ College, Cambridge. He is now Musical Director of the Fairhaven Singers, Full Score and Orchestral Score and Acting Assistant Director of Music at King’s College, Cambridge. He has played concertos on three instruments, worked in 20 Cambridge College Chapels, 20 UK cathedrals, six US states, and over 25 countries, and conducted the London Mozart Players, City of London Sinfonia, The Parley of Instruments, English Chamber Orchestra, and Britten Sinfonia. He carries out a wide range of editorial tasks for Oxford University Press and a number of the country’s leading composers. His choral arrangements have been performed all round Europe and on Radio 4’s PM programme. Past projects have included work with Vladimir Ashkenazy, Emma Johnson, Iestyn Davies and Cradle of Filth, and an appearance on ITV’s Grantchester. In addition to his musical interests, Ralph manages a cricket team, plays badminton enthusiastically, gives presentations on the assassination of JFK, and spends as much time as possible eating and drinking in foreign countries.

https://www.ralphwoodward.net/

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Downing Place United Reformed Church, 4 Downing Place, Cambridge, United Kingdom