Our Senior Orchestra will be playing their first concert of the year in London at Kings Place on Thursday 8 September. The first half of ‘Celebrating Menuhin’, which is presented by the Jewish Music Institute, features the orchestra performing music by George Enescu who was Menuhin’s teacher, a new piece by our Director of Music Malcolm Singer, and two of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with Johan Dalene as soloist. Johan won the EMCY Prize for Exceptional Performance at the Menuhin Competition earlier this year.
Malcolm Singer’s new piece ‘Chagall’s Violin’ was premiered at the Yehudi Menuhin Commemoration Event held as part of the School’s Menuhin 100 Festival in July. Malcolm explains: “The Governors, Richard Morris, our Chairman, and Zamira in particular, asked me to write a new piece for the commemoration. They wanted a celebratory piece and not a memorial. For a long time I had contemplated writing a work influenced by Marc Chagall’s wonderful paintings of violinists. With Yehudi and Chagall sharing a Russian heritage, this seemed a fruitful path to pursue, particularly as Yehudi had once mentioned the fact that all Jewish mothers wanted their sons to play the violin! This piece is for solo violin with six muted violins as support and is dedicated to Zamira Menuhin Benthall in appreciation of all her wonderful work for her father’s school over many years.”
The second half of the concert is a celebration of the rich diversity of violin playing, reflecting Yehudi’s collaborations with artists such as Ravi Shankar and Stephane Grapelli. Programmed by violinist and JMI Artistic Director Sophie Solomon, the concert includes performances by jazz/gypsy violinist Tcha Limberger, John Etheridge (original hot-club guitarist on Menuhin/Grappelli recordings), Dave Kelbie (rhythm guitar), Andy Crowdy (bass), Sheema Mukherjee (sitar) and Flora Curzon (violin).
Tickets are available from the King's Place booking office.
This event is part of JMI’s Festival of Jewish Arts & Music
