Guildhall School of Music & Drama, together with the St Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music, the Mariinsky Opera, and the St Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire, celebrate the UK-Russia Year of Music with a series of events, concerts and masterclasses in both countries.
The theme centres around the Romances written by the group of Russian composers, known as the ‘Mighty Handful’ who together developed distinctly Russian sounding music: César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin.
The project is part of the Year of Music Russia-UK grant from the British Council curated by Dr Lidia Ader (Russia) and Dr Maria Razumovskaya (UK).
In Autumn 2019, five Guildhall School musicians studying on Masters courses – singers Alexandria Wregglesworth, Jonathan de Garis and Liam Bonthrone and pianists Emelia Noack-Wilkinson and Ugne Vazgileviciute – began working on songs that embody the fusion of Russian and British words and music. They explored much-loved classics, such as Benjamin Britten’s song-cycle of Alexander Pushkin’s words Poet’s Echo, and the Romances of Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky and Balakirev using Lord Byron and Percival Shelley’s works, alongside some rare and neglected parts of the repertoire: the Shakespeare Sonnets of Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, as well as the Romances of Taneyev and Cui. Led by Guildhall School professor Dr Maria Razumovskaya, the sessions looked at how the nuances of the Russian language and the two nations’ cultural histories come together to form the distinct sound-world of the Russian romance.
From 12–16 February, the project moves from London to St Petersburg – the spiritual heartland of the Russian romance – and joins the culmination of the city’s celebration of Rimsky-Korsakov’s 175th anniversary.
The project will return to London on 10 March, when London audiences have the opportunity to experience an afternoon masterclass led by Iain Burnside and an evening Songs at Six concert featuring the Guildhall School musicians.
