Dr Maureen Eastwood.
Dr Maureen Eastwood’s smile is glorious to behold. She is a beautiful lady who radiates joy and serenity.
When her singing teacher, Sue Hartley, handed her Schubert’s lied , ‘An Die Musik’, and asked her to learn it, Maureen was captivated by the piece. She turned to YouTube to listen to versions by such celebrated singers as Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, Lotte Lehman, Dietrich Fischer Dieskau and Hans Hotter. One rendition, sung in a clear, contralto voice captivated her most of all. The singer was Kathleen Ferrier.
Maureen began to investigate the life and repertoire of Kathleen Ferrier, discovering that during the astoundingly prolific but tragically curtailed career already touched upon in these posts, the singer whose voice was decribed by Maurice D’Oisley as, ‘so full of colour and lovely warm velvety quality…it makes me imagine that I am being stroked’ had given a concert in Scarborough in 1952, just one year before she died from cancer, aged only 41. Maureen lives, works and sings in Scarborough.
Kathleen’s experience was to resonate with Maureen on a deeper level. Reading Maurice Leonard’s biography of Ferrier, she found the words, ‘The worst fears she had harboured since childhood were now realised’ as the star’s battle with breast cancer began. Those same fears had played on Maureen’s mind and she was prompted to make an appointment with her GP. A week after her appointment, with ‘only the vaguest of symptoms’, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, facing surgery and chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormone therapy. Early diagnosis and excellent care from Scarborough Hospital, Castle Hill and her own GP surgery have ensured that Maureen is, for now, cancer free.
Discovering the gift that serious prognosis and illness so often brings, Maureen has learnt to live in each moment, treasuring each human encounter and opportunity. Her singing became her poustinia, a place of catharsis and healing in much the same way that Kathleen Ferrier’s diary of concert engagements and commitment to every performance gave her a resilience and strength to stay positive and focused.
As Kathleen Ferrier’s Centenary Year approached, Maureen felt that there was only one way for Scarborough to pay its tribute. So, on January 16, 2012, Scarborough became host to the first event in the centenary year calendar; a recital using the original 1952 concert programme and set in the same venue, Queen Street Methodist Central Hall. The proceeds from the concert to be divided between three charities – Macmillan Cancer Support, Saint Catherine’s Hospice, Scarborough and the Kathleen Ferrier Cancer Research Fund.
Who would fill the shoes of the great contralto, Kathleen Ferrier, and Gerald Moore, the accompanist of whom Kathleen said, “It is a revelation to work with him…he breathes for me”? Maureen’s attention was brought to two rising stars of the classical musical world.
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Anna Stéphany’s current biography release from Hazard Chase management reads;
Anna Stephany
‘Anna Stéphany was born in the North East of England and studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the National Opera Studio, London. In 2005 she won the Gold Medal Competition at the Guildhall and went on to win the Kathleen Ferrier Award in the same year. Anna also represented England in the 2009 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition
Regular performances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra include her 2007 BBC Proms debut as Wellgunde Götterdämmerung with Donald Runnicles, an album of Rodrigo songs with David Zinman (Sony BMG) and Martinu’s Juliette with Jiri Belohlavek. With the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Colin Davis she has recorded Mozart’s Requiem (LSO Live) and most recently Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass.
From Baroque to Contemporary, Anna has collaborated with Early Opera Company/Christian Curnyn (Wigmore Hall Live recording of Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno to be released in 2011), the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Gabrieli Consort & Players, the Classical Opera Company (Wigmore Hall Live recording Blessed Spirit – A Gluck Retrospective released May 2010), Ensemble Intercontemporain and Nieuw Ensemble Netherlands. She has also worked with Harrison Birtwistle for performances of The Last Supper (London Sinfonietta) and The Mask of Orpheus (BBC Proms).
Recent highlights include Laurette in Offenbach’s La Chanson de Fortunio for Opéra Comique, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater at the BBC Proms with the Early Opera Company/Christian Curnyn, Stefano Romeo et Juliette with the State Symphony Orchestra of Russia, a recital with Simon Lepper at Chatsworth House, a return to Garsington Opera for Hermia A Midsummer Night’s Dream and her Bolshoi debut as Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus.
Engagements last season included Blumenmädchen in Parsifal for ZaterdagMatinee at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the role of Rosina Il Barbiere di Siviglia and staged performances of Handel’s Messiah for Théâtre du Châtelet and her US stage debut in the title role in Charpentier’s Médée for Chicago Opera Theater. Anna also returns to Festival d’Aix-en-Provence for Annio La Clemenza di Tito with the London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Colin Davis and appears as Concepción L’heure espagnole with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Andris Nelsons and Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius with the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest/Jaap van Zweden.
This season projects include Bruckner’s Requiem with the NDR Sinfonieorchester, Beethoven 9th with Musikkollegium in Winterthur, Dido Dido and Aeneas at the Wigmore Hall with Christian Curnyn, L’enfance du Christ with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Octavian Der Rosenkavalier at the Bolshoi, Dvorak Love Songs with Manchester Camerata and Speranza Orfeo with the Balthasar Neumann Chor and Thomas Hengelbrock.’
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Simon Lepper.
Simon Lepper was educated at King’s College, Cambridge and the Royal Academy of Music where he studied with Michael Dussek and Aaron Shorr. Whilst a student, he won every major award for piano accompaniment including the Gerald Moore Award and the accompanist prizes in the Kathleen Ferrier and Royal Overseas League competitions.
He is much in demand as a vocal accompanist and chamber musician, which has led to performances throughout the UK and Europe including the Wigmore Hall, Cologne Philharmonie, Concertgebouw, Mozarteum and regularly on BBC Radio 3. He has partnered singers of the calibre of Nicole Cabell, Sally Matthews, Mark Padmore, Felicity Palmer, Joan Rodgers, Kate Royal, Bryn Terfel, Ailish Tynan, and Roderick Williams. His interest in chamber music has led to performances with clarinettists Julian Bliss and Jorg Widmann, violinists Renaud Capuçon, Chlöe Hanslip, Jack Liebeck, Alexander Sitkovetsky and Carolin Widmann and cellists Daniel Müller-Schott and Gemma Rosefield.
Recordings include Debussy songs with Gillian Keith (Deux-Elles), Warlock songs with Andrew Kennedy (Landor Records), Feldman, Zimmerman, Xenakis and Schoenberg with violinist Carolin Widmann (ECM) and the cello, flute and voice syllabus for the Associated Board.
Simon is an official accompanist for the BBC Singer of the World Rosenblatt Song Prize and Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition as well as playing for the vocal masterclasses at the Verbier Festival, Switzerland. His experience as an adjudicator has included judging prizes at the British music colleges, the Yamaha Birmingham Accompanist of the Year Award and the Royal Overseas League Competition.
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Simon Lepper and Anna Stephany at Queen Street Metodist Central Hall on January 16, 2012. Page turner is Sue Hartley.
The concert was a triumph. The Central Hall was almost filled to capacity, with some concert goers having travelled upward of six hours to be there and one who had come from Tasmania especially for the event. There were a small number who had been present at the 1952 concert and Kathleen Ferrier’s god-daughter was also in the audience.
Anna Stéphany is a mezzo with a rich, luscious tone and confidence in her own vocal tessitura. She moved through a challenging programme with skill and a capacity to bring out the differentiations in character needed in pieces as diversely ranging as Purcell’s, ‘Mad Bess’ and Michael Head’s, ‘The Little Road To Bethlehem’. Her clarion voice soared through both upper and lower registers with security and precision, providing complex characterisations imbued with real feelings to one of Gluck’s loveliest passages, Che faro senza Euridice, but my own particular favourite was her rendition of ‘Silent Noon’, the second in the cycle of six sonnets written by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, the apotheosis of erotic love as the two lovers lie together in a meadow beneath the summer sun, enjoying the peace before the storm of discovering that the joy and contentment cannot endure. Ms Stéphany’s voice is both beautifully shaded and capable of pronounced force and, at times, the furious drama rang throughout the church as she swept through the raging coloratura of an aria of vengeance or the gentle humour of Frank Bridge’s setting of Tennyson’s poem, ‘Go not, happy day’. Peter Warlock’s, ‘Pretty Ring Time’, based upon Shakespeare’s words in ‘As You Like It’ merrily tripping along, ensured that Anna Stéphany took command of the whole performance from the first note to the triumphant last.
The piano commentaries deftly rendered by Simon Lepper were a delight, with him responding to each of the texts as part of his own remit and demonstrating a delicate, yet joyously assured, confidence in the necessary interplays of stoccato and legato throughout the programme. Of the three pianoforte solos, in Chopin’s Waltz in A flat Op 42, Lepper made an instant connection, the dark murmerings of the opening creating a melancholy that enabled the harmonies of the middle section and the dramatic shift in colour before the final reprise shine out ever more brightly. Nocturne No 2 in F sharp Op 15 is always a difficult one to get right and many musicians, in an attempt to bring out the ‘romantic’ qualities, somehow manage to afflict it with a cloudy vagueness, but I felt that Lepper got the balance spot on, cutting down on the sentimentality and insightfully emphasising the Nocturnes affinity with Chopin’s Ballades. Isaac Albèniz’s Seguidillas was pure fun, Lepper’s exact rhythms bringing out the strong flamenco pulse of the true Spanish dance performance.
After a cascade of applause, the concert concluded with ‘Blow The Wind Southerly’, the English Folk Song that came to be strongly associated with Kathleen Ferrier, and the singing of the National Anthem as the audience stayed standing for dignitaries to depart. Maureen’s vision for the Scarborough concert was a victoriously resounding testimony to the honour of Kathleen Ferrier herself, but also to the calibre of two contemporary talented musicians, Anna Stéphany and Simon Lepper, and to the hard work and dedication of Maureen and her team in making it happen.
I suspect that Kathleen’s smile upon the event would have been as beautiful and all-encompassing as Maureen’s own.
The concert raised money for three charities – The Kathleen Ferrier Cancer Research Fund, Macmillan Cancer Support and Saint Catherine’s Hospice, Scarborough. Donations to these charities can be made via Maureen at http://www.justgiving.com/user/28820333
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