PRISM Fenella Humphreys, violin

+ post-concert discussion with Leah Broad

Winner of the 2023 BBC Music Magazine Premiere Recording Award, and the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Instrumental Award, Fenella Humphreys has attracted critical admiration and audience acclaim with the grace and intensity of her remarkable performances. She is one of the UK’s most established and versatile violinists, with her playing described in the press as ‘alluring’, ‘unforgettable’ and ‘a wonder’.

Prism focuses on unaccompanied violin works – from new works written by young British composers to iconic recent works by Caroline Shaw, Jessie Montgomery and George Walker, with Fenella’s new arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue BWV565 at its heart. Fenella plays on a G.B. Guadagnini violin kindly on loan from Jonathan Sparey.

Following the performance, Fenella Humphreys will be joined by multi-award-winning writer, historian, and public speaker, Dr Leah Broad, for a discussion and Q&A. Leah specialises in twentieth-century cultural history, especially women in the arts.

Humphreys is technically and musically superb The Strad Magazine

Fenella Humphreys’s playing is a genuine revelation BBC Music Magazine

Concert Programme

Fritz Kreisler – Recitativo & Scherzo Caprice
Sarah Frances Jenkins – Tincture of the Skies
Michael Small – Prism
Caroline Shaw – In Manus Tuas
Heinrich Biber – Passacaglia
Cyril Scott – Idyll

— INTERVAL —

J.S. Bach arr. FH – Toccata & Fugue BWV 565
Cameron Biles-Liddell – Contemplations
Jessie Montgomery – Rhapsody no. 1
Eugene Ysaÿe – Sonata op. 27 no. 5