Tag Archives: Owain Park

In concert – The Gesualdo Six & Matilda Lloyd @ Wigmore Hall

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The Gesualdo Six [Guy James (countertenor), Alasdair Austin (countertenor), Joseph Wicks (tenor), Josh Cooter (tenor), Simon Grant (baritone) and director Owain Park (bass)]

Roth Night Prayer (2017)
Tallis O nata lux de lumine (pub. 1575)
Pritchard The Light Thereof (2020)
MacMillan O Radiant Dawn from The Strathclyde Motets (2005)
Tallis Dum transisset Sabbatum (1575)
Hildegard of Bingen O gloriosissimi (с.1163-1175)
Bingham Enter Ghost (2002)
Owain Park Sommernacht (2022)
Rheinberger Abendlied from 3 Geistliche Gesänge Op. 69 (pub.1873)
Barnard Aura (2020)
Roxanna Panufnik O Hearken (2015)
Burgon Nunc dimittis (1979)

Wigmore Hall, London, 2 October 2025

by John Earls. Photo credits unknown (above), John Earls (below)

The Gesualdo Six have recently released their tenth album (for Hyperion) Radiant Dawn. It finds them combining consistently high standards of choral music with imaginative programming featuring classic and contemporary compositions spanning over 800 years of music. It also sees them introducing a new element to the mix, namely the inclusion of the trumpet for a number of pieces superbly played by Matilda Lloyd.

The new album was the focus for this hour-long lunchtime concert at a packed Wigmore Hall with all pieces performed coming from it (and a few omitted). The theme of the album, as explained by The Gesualdo Six’s director and bass (and recently named new chief conductor of the BBC Singers) Owain Park, is “musical responses to light” in a whole variety of contexts.

First up in the set (and on the album) was Alec Roth’s Night Prayer, an almost dreamy reflection of the Compline hymn Te lucis ante terminum that introduces Lloyd’s trumpet and the remarkable effect it has when married with these magnificent voices.

Next was Thomas Tallis’s O nata lux de lumine, one of two shorter pieces (both just over 2 minutes) along with Roxanna Panufnik’s O Hearken, but their duration made them no less impactful. Both featured just voices, and I loved finding out from the programme that O Hearken started life as a raffle ticket prize. Another Tallis piece Dum transisset Sabbatum saw Matilda Lloyd’s trumpet taking the soprano voice to powerful effect.

There are two of James MacMillan’s Strathclyde Motets on the album. Only one of them, O Radiant Dawn, from which the album gets its title, gets performed here. It’s harmonically inspired by Tallis’s O nata lux de lumine and has a yearning to it befitting of the Advent season it relates to.

Richard Barnard’s Aura (commissioned for the album) sets music to the text of Emily Barry’s poem about the loss of her mother. Credit to the programme editors for faithfully reproducing the poem’s arresting layout – two parallel columns reflecting the emotional fracture involved (Owain Park’s programme notes were also excellent). This fracturing dissipates musically as the piece progresses with the trumpet acting as a bridge between two groups of singers. It was one of the most affecting pieces of the concert with the composer in the audience to hear it.

Another composer in the audience was Deborah Pritchard whose The Light Thereof (also commissioned for the album) sets words from the Book of Revelation and demonstrated deftly the ability of the trumpet (muted at times) to evoke different shades of light.

Matilda Lloyd’s virtuosity on the trumpet was to the fore in Judith Bingham’s Enter Ghost, an interpretation of a passage from Shakespeare’s Hamlet mixing music with spoken word, the drama enhanced by her walking off stage (and returning) whilst playing.

Other pieces sung a cappella included Hildegard of Bingen’s O gloriosissimi (from the back of the hall) and beautiful performances of Owain Park’s own Sommernacht and Joseph Rheinberger’s Abendlied.

The programme ended (as does the album) with Geoffrey Burgon’s Nunc dimittis which some may remember as the closing music from the BBC’s television adaptation of John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It was yet another example of how effective this glorious combination of voices and trumpet is and proved a fitting conclusion to a most illuminating concert.  

John Earls is Director of Research at Unite the Union and posts at @johnearls.bsky.social on Bluesky and @john_earls on X. You can subscribe (free) to his Hanging Out a Window Substack column here: https://johnearls.substack.com/

Published post no.2,677 – Saturday 4 October 2025

In concert – Southbank Sinfonia – Journeys Through Worlds (Álvarez, Woolrich, Burell and Glass); Eruptions of Sound and Colour (Simpson and Mozart)

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Journeys Through Worlds
Álvarez Metro Chabacano (1986, rev. 1991)
Woolrich Ulysses Awakes (1989)
Burrell Das Meer, das so gross und weit ist, da wimmelt’s ohne zahl, grosse und kleine Tiere (1992)
Glass Symphony no.3 (1995)
Southbank Sinfonia / Owain Park

Eruptions of Sound and Colour
Mark Simpson Geysir (2014)
Mozart Serenade no.10 in B flat major K361 ‘Gran Partita’ (1781-2)
Southbank Sinfonia / Nicholas Daniel

St John’s, Smith Square, London
Thursday 19 January 2023 @ 7pm and 9pm

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

A typically diverse programme by Southbank Sinfonia; actually two programmes, each of which lasted just over and hour and offered respective showcases for the strings then woodwind of this enterprising outfit – now into the second season of its St John’s residency.

Journeys Through Worlds featured four works by contemporary composers, opening with the energetic and purposeful intricacy of Javier Álvarez’s Metro Chabacano. Inspired by Mexico City’s busiest subway station, it made for an engaging concert opener and a telling foil to the restraint of John Woolrich’s Ulysses Awakes. Obliquely reworking an aria from the opera by Monteverdi, this brought viola and strings into ruminative if at times sombre accord – Peter Fenech drawing no mean eloquence from the solo writing. It may have one of the longest-ever titles, but Diana Burrell’s piece (translating as The vast and wide sea, wherein are things swarming innumerable, both great and small animals) brought the most dissonant music – its densely wrought textures needing scrupulous balance for their inner intensity fully to register.

This it received in part owing to attentive conducting from Owain Park, who went on to direct an impressive account of Philip Glass’s Third Symphony. Free from extra- or, for that matter, ‘other’ musical references, this modest work affords something of a neo-classical conception across its four movements – a moderately paced opener duly making way for a scherzo-like interplay of harmonic and pizzicato writing, then the soloistic writing of a fatalistic chaconne finding real contrast with the vigorous ensemble of a short while pointedly conclusive finale.

Eruptions of Sound and Colour, following a suitable interval, featured Southbank Sinfonia’s woodwind in two decidedly contrasted items. Established both as clarinettist and composer, Mark Simpson packed no mean activity into Geysir – its irresistibly upwards progress aptly evoking those Icelandic hot-springs of its title (which was evidently suggested by composer Simon Holt). These emerge out of an anticipatory calm to which the music at length returns, though the closing bars seem anything but tranquil given the activity that went before them.

Nicholas Daniel directed an assured account of this piece, then had prepared that of Mozart’s Gran Partita which followed (the Simpson having been commissioned for such a purpose). Still the finest and most likely longest work for wind ensemble, it also remains the canniest example of ‘functional’ music raised to a level transcending its ostensible purpose. Not least in the way that its orchestration – pairs of oboes, clarinets, basset horns and bassoons joined by four horns and double-bass – suggests possibilities both profound and far-reaching. It was a testament to the excellence of these musicians one never suspected (or would have noticed has this been a radio broadcast) the absence of any ‘guiding hand’ – such was their unanimity in pursuing the felicity and finesse of what ranks among its composer’s greatest achievements.

It proved a memorable way to close an evening of varied and consistently fine music-making. Southbank Sinfonia is returning to its home venue later this month in a Beethoven double-bill then over the coming months for repertoire established and unfamiliar but always worthwhile.

You can read more about the Southbank Sinfonia at their website. Click on the artist names for more on conductors Owain Park and Nicholas Daniel, while for more on the composers click on the names Javier Álvarez, John Woolrich, Diana Burrell, Philip Glass and Mark Simpson

In concert – Alison Balsom & Anna Lapwood @ Chapel of St Augustine, Tonbridge School

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Trad. arr. Oskar Lindberg Old Swedish Folk Song (unknown)
Kristina Arakelyan Modal Reeds (2021, world premiere)
Albinoni arr. Balsom / Lapwood Concerto in D Minor (1722)
Debussy arr. Lapwood Clair de Lune (1905); Syrinx (1913); The Girl with the Flaxen Hair (1910)
Britten arr. Lapwood Sunday Morning from Peter Grimes (1945)
Eben Okna (Windows): Green Window ‘Issachar’; Gold Window ‘Levi’ (1976)
J.S. Bach arr. Balsom / Lapwood Chorale Erbarm dich BWV 721 (unknown)
Owain Park Images (2018)
Alain arr. Balsom Litanies (1937)

Alison Balsom (trumpet), Anna Lapwood (organ), Sam Mendes (lighting director)

Chapel of St. Augustine, Tonbridge School, Tonbridge

15 October 2022

by Ben Hogwood

This was an inspirational evening of music, cleverly conceived and executed as the first in an impressive set of concerts to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Tonbridge Music Society. In its existence the society has attracted a stellar cast of classical and jazz artists to the Kent town, where they have a number of fine performing venues at their disposal. Even by their standards, however, this was an auspicious event.

Powered by a series of common musical denominators (and a shared love of Chelsea buns!), trumpeter Alison Balsom and organist Anna Lapwood created an immersive sequence of music for the striking Chapel of St Augustine in Tonbridge School. One of the many inspirations behind this was Alison’s teacher from the Guildhall School of Music, and her thank you gift took the form of an inspiring and memorable evening for many young performers, who in a ceremony afterwards were presented with a series of Diamond Music Awards given by TMS to support local musicians between the age of 5 and 18.

Both performers have a strong belief in giving back to their communities and passing on to the next generation of performers. The week leading up to the concert featured a master class given by Balsom for students of the school, and Lapwood’s continued personal and virtual encouragement for her many followers under the #playlikeagirl hashtag is bearing fruit if the young audience was anything to go by. Both showed why they can be lasting inspirations, their craft borne of a shared passion for the music they play.

Complementing the music was a lightshow, under the direction of Sam Mendes – Balsom’s husband, clearly relishing a more vocational night away from his film director profession. Running smoothly and logically, the music began with solo organ – and few would have been prepared for the immediate and bare emotion of the Old Swedish Folk Song arranged by Oskar Lindberg. We heard a counterpoint from Kristina Arakelyan, who was present for the world premiere of her similarly moving Modal Reeds. A cinematic piece led by Balsom, this had striking parallels to the film music of Thomas Newman in its rich harmonic palette and distinctive, bright textures. It made a strong impression.

The chapel was bathed in blue at this point, a subtle counterpoint to the music. Balsom then fell under the spotlight, moving to the organ loft for a spirited account of Albinoni’s Oboe Concerto in D minor, its natural arrangement for trumpet making much of the heartfelt second movement, proving there is more than one Adagio bearing the composer’s name! Lapwood’s choice of registrations on the organ throughout the evening was ideal, but here especially she found a rewarding balance and sensitive phrasing.

A Debussy triptych followed – a mellow-voiced Clair de Lune, in the organist’s own arrangement, segueing neatly into Balsom’s account of Syrinx, the solo flute piece taking flight in its arrangement for trumpet. Both instruments combined in a plaintive account of The Girl With The Flaxen Hair.

The evening’s centrepiece was to follow, prefaced by a fiendishly difficult arrangement of Sunday Morning, second of Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes. The longest stop on the organ came into play, rumbling beneath a vividly pictorial account where Balsom added a treble line. From here we moved to two substantial segments from Petr Eben’s Okna (Windows), a 1976 piece inspired by four of Marc Chagall’s stained glass windows. Coincidentally, only three miles down the road stands Tudeley parish church, the only site in England to feature original windows by the artist.

This piece is clearly special to Balsom, and the two gave a penetrating insight into Eben’s writing, taking two substantial excerpts. Lapwood exploited the organ’s colour, the mottled Green Window gathering intensity with some raucous interventions against Balsom’s fluid line. The steady build in the Gold Window was something special indeed, reaching an apex in what Balsom termed ‘the loudest B flat chord ever for non-amplified instruments’. It certainly left its mark here!

Great control was required for the floated melody of Bach’s chorale Erbarm dich before the evocative Images from Owain Park, to which the trumpet added a playful yet poignant treble line. Jehan Alain’s Litanies also benefited from this, the organ piece given an extra-ceremonial air to close proceedings. We were not fully done, however, as a softly played encore arrangement of Shenandoah held the audience rapt a little while longer.

Both artists should be applauded for their creativity and collaboration here, two words that sit towards the forefront of their thinking. The balance was ideal, a notable achievement given the familiar problems of tricky sightlines and the distance between the two performers. Mendes, too, should be credited for a sensitive response that cast a spell on those in the chapel, moving from cool blue hues to dramatic outlines in gold. A special evening indeed – how about reproducing it as a late-night Prom?

For more information on Anna Lapwood’s new Images album, featuring the piece from Owain Park, click here. Meanwhile for more on Alison Balsom’s recent release Quiet City, click here – and for more information on her debut album for EMI Classics (latterly Warner), containing a complete account of Petr Eben’s Okna, click here