The Sam Every Big Band
The Sam Every Big Band, fronted by former Head Boy Sam Every and made up of some of our brightest and most talented recent alumni, have a Christmas EP out today (4th December), Christmas is Here. The album is full of festive classics and new Christmas songs to spice up your playlists, and is available on all digital streaming platforms.
The band will also be performing a Christmas Special Livestream Concert on 22nd December at 8.30pm, in conjunction with AppleCart Arts. With guest vocals from Meg Bird and Luca Manning, you can expect a musical festive feast. Tickets are £8 and are available to purchase here.
Ivor Novello Composers Award
We are delighted to be able to announce that composer and Purcell teacher Daniel Fardon has won an Ivor Novello Award, in the Small Chamber category, with his Six Movements for String Quartet commission for the Royal Philharmonic Society and Wigmore Hall. Huge congratulations to Daniel. All at Purcell are thrilled for you.
To listen to Six Movements and watch Daniel talk about the piece, please visit Soundcloud and YouTube, respectively.
Composer in Association
Here at The Purcell School we are incredibly fortunate to have many incredibly talented Associate Artists who visit the school on a regular basis to take masterclasses, inspire projects, give lectures and develop other musical activities with students and staff. The relationships established are long held and mutually beneficial. None more so than with Purcell’s Composer in Association Robert Saxton.
Robert Saxton has been the Composer in Association at The Purcell School since 2013. He works primarily with composition students but also feeds into the wider work of the School and the artistic programme.
Over the course of 2020-21, Robert will contribute three or four separate projects and continue to support the future planning of the School’s artistic programme.
We are enormously grateful to Robert for his generous support over many years as Composer in Association, and look forward to many more.
English Sinfonia Concerts
Alumna and Purcell governor Janice Graham is the English Sinfonia’s Leader and Artistic Director, and Julia Graham, also a Purcellian, the cellist. On Tuesday 15th December, the orchestra will perform two concerts of English Miniatures at St John’s Smith Square (1.05pm and 7pm, respectively). Janice Graham will open the programme of rarely performed English chamber works from the late 19th and 20th century (including Bridge, Coleridge-Taylor, Bax and Holst) with Vaughan Williams’ much-loved The Lark Ascending. This will mark 100 years to the day since the work’s first public performance on 15th December 1920.
For more information and to book tickets, please visit the St John’s Smith Square website. Links are below:
1.05pm Performance
7pm Performance
