Julia Woolf News
English composer
- piano
- opera, song
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
- composer, pianist
Last update
2024-04-25
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2024-02-23 12:43:00
Being performed for the first time for almost 20 years: Murray Hipkin & the North London Chorus give us a chance to finally experience Ethel Smyth's The Prison in concert
[…] contemplation and ethical conduct to detach the self from the ego and free the imprisoned mind, body, and soul from the shackles of desire, so as to attain spiritual deliverance."The result is a thoughtful, almost contemplative piece, in a style that we don't associate with Smyth because the mental image of her remains Sir Thomas Beecham's figure conducting The March of the Women with a toothbrush through a prison window, or the passionate harridan from Virginia Woolf's diaries. What we hear in The Prison is a composer formed by training and personal contact with the Leipzig circle around Schumann and Mendelssohn's families, for whom the First World War was a great cultural and musical wrench. The post-war Smyth adjusted her style, but she never wrote music in the manner of her English contemporaries, and this performance of The Prison gives us a chance to find out more.Full details of the performance on 16 […]
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
2024-02-20 20:24:21
Lookouts Aloft! A Composer Puts Out to Sea
[…] example, she thought to keep on composing ― but it was becoming difficult, depressing, and frustrating. By 1920, she read through her Mass of 30 years prior and wrote: "God, what a stride I had in those days. What courage? morally, I mean. Where has it all gone? And Echo answers, into trying to take life's difficulties reasonably." By 1931, she’d given up composing altogether. In 1930, she met and fell in love with Virginia Woolf, and their almost daily correspondence and meetings lasted until Virginia’s death in 1941. In a letter from 1936 to Ethel, Virginia writes, “Well, Ethel, I’ve finished your book…I think it’s a triumph, and if I go halfway down the road to immortality, it will be because my name is on your title page.” Ethel’s last letter to Virginia is dated February 1941, “You have given me the greatest joy of my latter end. ’I […]
2024-01-15 21:53:00
West Edge Opera Festival Schedule Change
Oakland Scottish Rite CenterJuly, 2022West Edge Opera has announced that they're delaying their production of Charpentier's David and Jonathan to 2025, swapping in Luna Pearl Woolf and Royce Vavrek's Jacqueline in 2024. The latter will star soprano Marnie Breckenridge and cellist Matt Haimovitz. From the press release:Jacqueline dives into the real-life struggle between celebrity virtuosic cellist Jacqueline du Pré and the multiple sclerosis that ravaged her body, mind, and talent, robbing her of her identity, her breathtaking musical gift, and her life. This intimate piece for soprano and cello brings two contemporary virtuosi to the stage: celebrated soprano Marnie Breckenridge as Jacqueline, and renowned cellist (and former du Pré protégé) Matt Haimovitz as du Pré’s only constant companion, her cello. Inspired by the structure and emotional landscape of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, composer Luna Pearl Woolf and Pulitzer Prize winning librettist Royce Vavrek chart the development of great prodigy and ultimately, great tragedy. Jacqueline references Haimovitz’s personal […]
2023-06-21 05:59:36
On this day in 1966 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, film directorial debut of Mike Nichols, is released.
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