The University of Sheffield has today (3 February 2012) announced the new spring concert season which commences this month organised by the Department of Music.
Highlights this season include a series of events examining links between music, disability and health and wellbeing, featuring acclaimed artists the Navarra Quartet, Steven Osborne and the Fidelio Trio.
Other highlights include concerts and films exploring the role music played in the events of the Egyptian revolution last year, featuring singer and musicologist Reem Kelani; and an event series focusing on music and film with the Sensoria Festival including film screenings of La Dolce Vita, and silent films the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Metropolis, with live accompaniment.
In addition to evening concerts the series includes rush-hour concerts, free lunchtime concerts and a lunchtime series at Museums Sheffield Graves and Millennium Galleries, and Western Park Museum; all featuring University of Sheffield students.
Music, Disability and Health and Wellbeing will investigate how disability has affected the musical output composers; how music and creativity can improve wellbeing and how music has raised awareness for health related causes.
The first event in this series looks at Beethoven and hearing impairment, in partnership with Music in the Round.
Beethoven´s hearing impairment is well documented and was a slow process occupying over twenty years from its start to eventual total deafness.
At the age of 23 Beethoven lost the ability to hear high pitched sounds. By the age of 51 he was totally deaf in terms of speech comprehension and social functioning and yet in years of total deafness he completed some of his finest works.
Highlights include a concert on Friday 17 February at the Crucible Studio Theatre at which the Navarra Quartet will perform Beethoven works including a quartet which seems to reflect upon the time at which Beethoven was first struggling with deafness, whilst Beethoven scholar Professor William Drabkin takes a closer look at the music being performed in a pre-concert talk.
The Navarra Quartet are winners of the Outstanding Young Artist Award at the MIDEM Classique Awards in Cannes and over the last two years they have increasingly developed their international profile, appearing at major festivals and venues throughout Europe, Russia, the USA and Bahrain.
Stewart Campbell Concerts Manager at the Department of Music said: "This season we feature several programming themes each demonstrating the importance of music in a number of varying disciplines, including science and health, politics and world culture and in the film industry.
"I hope the series on health, disability and wellbeing will highlight the importance of music and culture on our wellbeing, whilst celebrating the impressive work being undertaken in this city within these two cross-cutting practices.
"I'm also pleased to develop relationships with our artistic partners allowing the series to further contribute to the civic mission of the University."
On Tuesday 21 February, University of Sheffield Firth Hall acclaimed pianist Steven Osborne will perform a concert featuring the music of Maurice Ravel, a composer who experienced Dementia.
Maurice Ravel developed progressive neurological symptoms over the later years of his life.
Next in the series is an event examining Robert Schumann and Bipolar disorder performed by the Fidelio Trio on Tuesday 28 February at University of Sheffield Firth Hall.
Robert Schumann had a life long history of medical problems which influenced his life and music in many ways.
Throughout his life he had episodic periods of depression which significantly reduced his compositional output.
At the age of 34 he had a complete nervous breakdown and refused to listen to any of his music. Ten years later he tried to take his own life by jumping in the Rhine.
He was admitted into an asylum and died two years later. Schumann created two contrasting personas - Florestan (spontaneous) and Eusebius (introverted) and these characters repeatedly occur in his compositions.
This combined with radical compositional techniques researchers have argued constitutes a musical mind beset with Bipolar disorder.
Since their South Bank debut the Fidelio Trio have appeared at venues across the UK including the Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, and the Royal Opera House. 2011 performances have included appearances at Symphony Space, New York City a tour of Northern Ireland, a broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and an extensive tour of South Africa.
This event will be accompanied by a talk by music journalist and BBC Radio 3 presenter Stephen Johnson. Johnson like Schumann has suffered from Bipolar disorder.
He will discuss the music performed by the Trio and present other examples about the way he hears Schumann´s manic phases in his music, in addition to sharing his own experiences of the disorder.
Over the past year the world has witnessed increasing political unrest across the Arab nations.
A year on from the start of the Egyptian revolution Palestinian singer, musicologist and broadcaster Reem Kelani who witnessed the protests in Tahrir Square first hand last January will perform a concert of music by Egyptian composer Sayyid Darwish on Tuesday 13 March, at University of Sheffield Firth Hall.
Considered by many to be the father of contemporary Arabic music, Sayyid Darwish is little known outside the Arab world and under-appreciated in some musical establishments within it.
Sunday 22 April sees the concert series collaborate for the first time with the Sensoria Festival of Music, Digital and Film.
This mini series looks into the relationship between music and film including a concert performance on Tuesday 24 April at University of Sheffield Firth Hall by the Tippett Quartet.
They perform music by prolific film composer Nino Rota and look at his career long collaboration with director Federico Fellini, one of the most prolific director-composer pairings in the history of cinema.
Their film the iconic "La Dolce Vita" will be shown outside in the stunning surroundings of the Firth Court Quod on Wednesday 25 April.
Additional film showings include The Hunchback of Notre Dame on Sunday 22 April, with improvised piano by renowned silent film improviser Darius Battiwalla, and Metropolis on Thursday 26 April.
Metropolis, Fritz Lang´s 1927 futurist masterpiece is widely considered one of the most influential silent films of all time and the first ever blockbuster of the sci-fi genre. It is brought to life with the original Huppertz score performed by a chamber orchestra of Sheffield University students.
The season is now on general sale, tickets can be purchased from Sheffield Arena Ticket Shop 0114 256 5567 or online www.sheffield.ac.uk/concerts or in person at University of Sheffield Students´ Union Box Office Western Bank Sheffield.
Sheffield: Spring Concerts
