William Berger has written article for The Arts Desk exploring the personal sentiment and the development of the programme for his debut recital CD Insomnia: A Nocturnal Voyage in Song. The programme ties together works from composers including Mozart, Liszt, Wolf, Rodney Bennett, Raymond Yiu and more. Conveying “what a deeply personal expression this programme was and continues to be”, the article outlines the journey that develops throughout the song cycle, “of a young man yearning for a lost love during a restless, sleepless night”.

Developed as a programmatic recital, the cycle follows a progression from “odes to the beauty of the night”, before a turn to “death and darker things” with dreams haunted with the thought of his unresponsive lover. This pain in the darker turmoil is described by William as something that everyone can feel- “We have all felt the pain of a broken heart at some point in our lives. Indeed, it is part of the human condition”.

William comments that there is a certain ambiguity as to whether the absent lover is dead or alive, whether it is an unrequited love or whether her silence denotes the end of a relationship. He admits that the story has “kept changing over time” even for him, and will continue to be interpreted by each listener individually.

To celebrate the CD’s release in South Africa, William will give a recital of the programme on September 21st.

To read the full article, please visit The Arts Desk.

(Written on September 5, 2012 )

This week, Jessica Duchen publishes the first part of her extended interview with Augustin Dumay. In it, Dumay discusses his career as both a solo violinist and conductor as well as his new CD; Camille Saint-Saëns: La muse et la poete, Concerto No. 1, Symphony No. 1. He also discusses his collaboration with Maria João Pires:

“immediately it was something extraordinary.”

Read the whole interview here. Look out for part 2 of Augustin Dumay’s interview next Monday.

(Written on August 22, 2012 )

We are delighted to begin 2012 with some exciting new additions to our client roster.

Bridget Cunningham is an award-winning harpsichordist, conductor and early music specialist whose research and performances have been featured on ITV, Sky Arts and BBC TV and Radio including Woman’s Hour, Front Row and Radio 3’s In Tune.  We are delighted to be working with Bridget on all her up-coming engagements and promoting her new album ‘Handel in Ireland’.

We are also excited to be working with the up and coming lyric soprano Nadine Mortimer-Smith who is appearing at St Alban’s Chamber Opera and in the Fourth London Festival of American Music in 2012, as well as producing her first recording. WildKat PR are working with Nadine in Europe and the USA, offering PR and consultancy services.

We also welcome the French Institute, the official French government centre for culture in the UK. Their classical concert series encourages cross-cultural exchange and highlights the rich history of French music. Upcoming concerts feature singers from the Royal Academy of Music, the Psophos Quartet, the Mercury Quartet, Ivan Ilic, Charles Owen and more.

We will also be working with an exciting young Baroque violinist, Johannes Pramsohler on his busy concert schedule which regularly takes him all over the world.  This year Johannes will be releasing his solo album with the International Baroque Players entitled ‘Pisendel – Violin Concertos From Dresden,’ which included previously unrecorded works by Handel, Fasch and Pisendel.

Finally, we welcome the pianist and composer Jean-Philippe Rio-Py. Jean-Philippe’s rhythmic compositions have already led him to record an album for Cutting Edge / Air Edel, and he will recording his second CD in 2012, as well as performing at the exclusive Box club in Soho.

Nadine Mortimer-Smith

For any enquiries, please contact WildKat PR on london@wildkatpr.com, or call us +44 20 7499 9334.

(Written on January 23, 2012 )

Thomas Kemp was on In Tune on Tuesday talking about his Christmas concert, Music@Malling. This is also a first chance to hear world-premier recordings of music by Mark Anthony Turnage, from the CD recorded by Thomas Kemp and Chamber Domaine; A Constant Obsession.

You can also see Thomas Kemp featured in the January Issue of Gramophone magazine, out now.

If you missed In Tune on Tuesday, you can still listen here.

For more information on A Constant Obsession, go to the Resonus website here.

(Written on December 19, 2011 )

As I was searching for a book online, I was struck by a thought about how reviews influence our opinions, and ultimately what we buy.

I was looking for any interesting books focussing on the role of social media in a B2C environment – something I am keen to know more about as social media is rapidly becoming more integral to what we do as a company. The first book I stumbled across had an average rating of 3 stars. On closer inspection this average was from just two reviews. The first was a 5 star review, the second a meagre one star with the damning comments “350 pages of the totally obvious”, and “if it was well written, funny or interesting it may get away with its lack of ideas and originality. Unfortunately, it is not”.

Strangely, despite the 5* reviewer being flagged as one of Amazon’s “Top 100 Reviewers” and the reassuring Amazon affirmation that the review was penned under the author’s real name, it was the negative comments from the person who has only felt compelled to review this one book that instantly made me close the window and search for something else.

This made me wonder how reviews affect our opinions of music, both live and recorded. Specifically, do we respect the opinion of the “expert” journalists in the national papers and music magazines (my use of quotations is to avoid offending very intelligent non-journalists, not to suggest that the press are not experts in their field), or is a review from a friend, peer or even stranger online more influential?

I have changed my mind on numerous occasions about purchasing a CD after a friend of mine has said they did not enjoy it (and vice versa – bought something I may not have considered after someone has sung its praises). The same is true for live performances – I have been to see a concert because someone on facebook or twitter has assured me that the performer is worth me spending my money on.

And though I find the opinions of reviewers in the newspapers very interesting – it is not that often that I am convinced to go (or not go) to a live event. Perhaps the reason for this is that many classical reviews are from one-off concerts, rather than a long tour or run, and on the occasions where there is an opportunity to see the concert again, it has been sold out for months already, so it isn’t possible for me to go, even if I now wanted to.

I can think of two big exceptions to this, however. The first being ENO’s 2010 production of Don Giovanni (see our video blog about that here), which outraged the press to such an extent that I felt that I simply had to go and make my own mind up about it (and I loved every minute!). The second was not a review, but a recommendation. Andrew Clements’ “The best classical music for 2011” made me rush off to various websites, yelling “GET ME A TICKET FOR THAT” – his concise list of 2011 highlights was varied and appealing and instantly had me reaching for my bank card.

So what affects your ticket and CD purchases? Do you prefer to listen to feedback from your friends on facebook or the people you follow on Twitter? Or does the printed press send you running to (or from) the concert hall? And what is more powerful at influencing our opinions – 20 positive reviews, or one negative one?

(Written on January 21, 2011 )