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| City Music Foundation 2025 Young Artists in the Great Hall at St Bart’s |
The City Music Foundation (CMF) was founded in 2012 and has developed significantly into an organisation that supports young artists by offering career development, turning talent into a success. For some years CMF has developed a relationship with St Barts giving concerts in the Great Hall. Following the recent restoration of the hall after extensive conservation and restoration work in the last two years under the direction of Will Palin and Barts Heritage, the Hall and the Hogarth Stair are looking absolutely stunning. By way of a celebration both of CMF and the Great Hall, there was a Meet the Artists event in the Great Hall on Wednesday 25 February where there was a chance not only to see the hall but to meet the CMF team and hear performances from some of the current CMF Young Artists, as well as being able to meet members of earlier cohorts including some of the first.
Proceedings were opened by percussionist James Larter (CMF 2021) playing Asventuras by Alexej Gerassimez, an amazing tour de force for untuned percussion. The first set also included pianist Nikita Lukinov (CMF 2024) playing Mikhail Pletnev’s sparkling arrangement of the Adagio from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty Suite, mezzo-soprano Joanna Harries (CMF 2024) and pianist Mihai Ritivoiu (CMF 2016) in If I loved you from Rogers & Hammerstein’s Carousel, the wind quintet Ensemble Renard in terrific form in two movements from Bartok’s Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm from Mikrokosmos Vol. 6 in arrangements by George Strivens, and soprano Caroline Taylor (CMF 2022) and pianist Sholto Kynoch in Schubert’s Im Frühling.
The second set featured violinist Basil Alter (CMF 2025) and pianist Jack Redman (CMF 2024) in a bravura account of Tchaikovsky’s Valse-scherzo, Intesa Duo (CMF 2025) consisting of Lucine Musaelian and Nathan Giorgetti (viols and voice) in a haunting Armenian traditional song Kakavik where Musaelian whilst playing the viol, Duo Melos (CMF 2024) consisting of Katie Taunton, flute, and Jack Redman, piano) in a fast and delightfully dazzling short piece by Dilys Elwyn-Edwards and a Welsh traditional song, A I want with Tom to Town arranged by Stephen Goss that proved to be rather perky and surprisingly complete, and finally pianist Sofia Sacco (CMF 2024) played Couperin’s Le rossignol en amour and Kabalevsky’s brilliant, rather neo-classical Prelude and Fugue in C Major, Op.61 No. 2.
The final set opened with soprano Theano Papdaki (CMF 2024) and percussionist James Larter in EL Vito for the lovely combination of voice and marimba. Then pianist Will Harmer (CMF 2025) played one of his own compositions, a fugue that was complex yet rather engaging; cellist Geirþrúður Anna Guðmundsdóttir (CMF 2024) and pianist Antoine Preat (CMF 2021) gave a vibrant, upfront account of the scherzo from Brahms’ Sonatensatz; then baritone George Robarts (CMF 2024) and Will Harmer brought things to a lively, light-hearted yet apt conclusion with Noel Coward’s There are bad times just around the corner.
The CMF programme of concerts continues on 11 March when cellist Arian Kashefi and pianist Petr Limonov are performing Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata and Amy Beach’s Three Pieces, Op. 40 in the Great Hall in Barts North Wing. Full details from the CMF website.
