SOLA: Music for viola by women composers Rosalind Ventris, with guest Sally Beamish

Director of Musical Performance and Performance Studies at the University of Oxford, and Professor of Viola at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Rosalind Ventris is a leading advocate of the viola and works as a performer, teacher, festival artistic director, researcher and writer. She performs at some of the greatest venues and festivals in the world, and has won a number of highly coveted international prizes.

World-recognised composer Sally Beamish returned to performing when her daughter, luthier Stephanie Irvine, made her a viola. Since then she has performed regularly with chamber ensembles, including Divertimenti, and the Elias and Chilingirian quartets.    Tonight, she will be joining Rosalind Ventris to perform Prelude and Canon – a work commissioned by Peter Lissauer for the Inaugural Partial to Paganini Festival, inspired by traditional Scottish fiddle music and the classical music of the Highland bagpipes.

Ventris’ debut solo album features music for unaccompanied viola composed between 1930 (Imogen Holst’s impressive Suite for Viola) and the present day (a 2020 lockdown miniature by Thea Musgrave).

Programme

Grażyna Bacewicz Kaprys Polski

Lilliam Fuchs Sonata Pastorale

Amanda Feery Boreal

Sally Beamish Penillion

Elisabeth Lutyens Echo of the Wind

Elizabeth Maconchy Five Sketches

Imogen Holst Suite for Unaccompanied Viola

Thea Musgrave In the Still of the Night

Thea Musgrave Light at the End of the Tunnel

Sally Beamish Prelude and Canon (for two violas)