Evelyn Tubb

(soprano)

Michael Fields

(medieval harp, lute, chitarrone, classical guitars)

Saturday 20 September 2008 7.30pm

Kinson Community Centre, Pelhams Park, Millhams Rd, Kinson, Bournemouth BH10 7LH

For further information contact Margaret Tredwell at .

EVELYN TUBB has been hailed as "one of the few truly outstanding sopranos of her generation". She is widely admired for her innovative and adventurous performances, which range with ease and convincing authenticity from medieval to contemporary music. She spent her formative years on the Isle of Wight, where early training in dance, piano, trumpet and singing, along with eclectic musical tastes, laid the foundations of her unique, expressive style. After studies at the Guildhall School of Music, Evelyn became a member of the Consort of Musicke, and sang with several other top early music ensembles. With them, and in her duo partnerships with Anthony Rooley and Michael Fields, she has made dozens of recordings and given concerts and broadcasts in the USA, Japan, Australia, Israel and East & West Europe.

Evelyn has a passion for music-drama in its many forms, and has performed works ranging from Hildegard of Bingen's Ordo Virtutum, through baroque opera, to pieces by Peter Maxwell-Davies and David Bedford. Her inspiring teaching is much in demand for courses world-wide, and she is a Professor of Singing at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland.

MICHAEL FIELDS was born in Hawaii, where the song of the surf and the rhythm of ukeleles made a lasting impression on him. He began his musical journey playing folk, rock and jazz in California and Australia, until a romantic interest in older music took him to England in 1974 to study classical guitar and lute. His career as a performer, conductor, opera director and teacher has since taken him back around the world several times. Characteristically diverse highlights of his work have included directing baroque operas, playing Rodrigo's "Concerto de Aranjuez" with the Camden Chamber Orchestra, and playing the lute on a Van Morrison CD! He recently recorded Vivaldi's Lute Concerto with the US ensemble, New Trinity Baroque. He also directs the medieval vocal ensemble, Vox Animae, whose CD and DVD recording of Ordo Virtutum by Hildegard of Bingen has received international acclaim. Michael is the Musical Director of Sastamala Gregoriana early music festival in Finland, and a regular teacher and performer at Dartington International Summer School.

Since meeting as students, Evelyn and Michael have enjoyed a fruitful partnership exploring music from folk-song to their own compositions. Their communication with each other, the music and audiences has found followers from Japan and Australia to Europe, with critics praising "the absolute affinity between voice and instrument" achieved by the duo. They have recorded many CDs together, ranging from collections of English Ayres, through baroque songs by Sigismondo D'India and Daniel Purcell (Henry's younger brother), to a collection of Romantic Lieder. Their latest CD - The Troubadour and the Nun - has just been released on the Etcetera label.

"Evelyn Tubb is a magnificent interpreter&helip; the audience wondered at her marvellous capacity of varying her vocal colours to give her performance an element of passion and theatricality that frequently touched the highest peaks of art. Fields' lute playing accompanied her with a precision and harmony rarely found between singer and accompanist." L'Arena, Verona

"By the end of the evening we all had the 'tingle factor' and lump in the throat sensation, and they don't come very often!" Linda Osborne

Recordings:

Oft have I sighed (Misawa); Fly from the world (Aeolian); Lamento di Didone (Aeolian); Once I had a Sweetheart (Columns); The Dark is my delight (Musica Oscura); The Voice of the Night (Classic Print) A Musical Hodge Podge (Regis)

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