Carolyn Sampson is an English soprano who began her career in early music (Bach and before), working with some of the world’s best-known specialists in historically informed performance. These days, she is just as likely to be heard singing Mahler. She talks about her developing career in a conversation recorded at this year’s Australian Festival of Chamber Music.
Also from the Festival, the fearless Australian-born, London-based pianist Joseph Havlat. He enjoys the challenge of new music and the more virtuosic the better. But he is also a composer, his music defying categorisation, veering between the deeply serious and hilariously funny – sometimes in the same piece. He talks to Andrew Ford about his playing and composing, and how they intersect.
Music in this program:
Title: The Plaint (O, let me forever weep) from The Fairy Queen
Artist: Gabrieli Consort & Players, Carolyn Sampson (soprano), conducted by Paul McCreesh
Composer: Henry Purcell
Album: Purcell: The Fairy Queen 1692
Label: Winged Lion / Signum Classics
Title: Death has no features of his own (from The Sharpness of Death)
Artist: Joseph Havlat, Lotte Betts-Dean
Composer: Joseph Havlat
Recording supplied by the composer
Title: 64 Geese
Artist: JEP
Composer: JEP
Album: JEP
Label: Independent
Title: 64 Geese
Artist: Charles Owen, Katya Apekisheva, Joseph Havlat
Composer: Joseph Havlat
Recording courtesy Australian Festival of Chamber Music, 2023
Title: The Barber of Calvary
Artist: Joseph Havlat, Christine Buras
Composer: Joseph Havlat, text by Clickhole
Recording supplied by the composer
Title: Oxford in 1817; No. 1
Artist: Joseph Havlat, Lotte Betts-Dean
Composer: Michael Finnissy
Album: Alternative Readings
Label: Metier
Title: Living Proof
Artist: Linda May Han Oh with Ambrose Akinmusire and Tyshawn Sorey
Composer: Linda May Han Oh
Album: Strange Heavens
Label: Biophilia Records
Title: Sehnsucht
Artist: Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton
Composer: Franz Schubert
Album: Schubert’s Four Seasons
Label: BIS
Title: Super Flumina Babylonis
Artist: The Sixteen
Composer: Tomás Luis De Victoria
Album: The Flowering of Genius
Label: CORO
Title: La Dame De Monte-Carlo
Artist: Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton
Composer: Francis Poulenc
Album: Reason In Madness
Label: BIS
Title: If Music Be The Food Of Love
Artist: Carolyn Sampson, Joseph Middleton
Composer: Henry Purcell, arranged by Benjamin Britten
Album: Lost Is My Quiet: Duets And Solo Songs
Label: BIS
The Music Show was made this week on Gadigal, Gundungurra, Bindal and Wulgurukaba Land.
Technical production by Beth Stewart.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.abc.net.au ’
