The Programme:
Jane Vignery – Sonata for horn and piano
Heitor Villa-Lobos – Suite Floral for piano
Katherine Hoover – Winter Spirits for solo flute
Eugène Bozza – En forêt for horn and piano
Dora Pejačević – The Life of Flowers (Blumenleben) for piano
Mel Bonis – Scènes de la forêt for flute, horn and piano
Reiko Fujisawa and a selection of internationally acclaimed musicians present ‘Forest and Flowers’ – one from a series of four concerts which illuminate the relationship between music and nature. Modern classics and fascinating rarities, especially by women composers, complement chamber music landmarks.
About the programme…
The sun, the moon, the wind, rain and earth: the elemental forces of nature surround us. We can’t live without nature, but being so close to it, we forget its constant presence, and fail to respect it. Now, we are more than ever aware of our impact on our climate and the world’s precious resources. In this concert, Reiko Fujisawa and friends perform repertoire that focuses on both tangible and spiritual aspects of nature.
The wider world is also waking up to the unique voices of forgotten women composers such as Dora Pejačević and Mel Bonis. Through them, we encounter a life-cycle mirroring our own in the world of flowers and forests.
Reiko Fujisawa, Anna Noakes and Jonathan Williams will inspire you to admire the beauty and importance of the natural world through music, and to think about our environment from a fresh perspective.
With introduction and insights from Peter Quantrill.
In case the works are unfamiliar to you, we’ve put together a set of videos of various artistes performing them, to whet your appetite…
About the performers…
Please note that due to circumstances beyond our control, the two musicians originally planned to accompany Reiko (Paul Edmund-Davies and Laurence Davies) will be replaced by Anna Noakes and Jonathan Williams.
Reiko Fujisawa – Piano
Reiko fuses the sensibilities of a musician raised in the Far East who trained in the West. Following study at the Musashino University of Music in Tokyo and in San Francisco, she moved to the UK, where she trained at Trinity College and with Martino Tirimo, Benjamin Kaplan and Yonty Solomon.
Reiko has established herself as an exciting and formidable virtuoso performer. She made her debut at Southbank Centre in 1999, at the Wigmore Hall in 2003, and performed with the Soloists of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the inaugural season at London’s Cadogan Hall in 2006. She has since made appearances at prestigious venues all over the UK and overseas; Reiko was a featured artist at the Japan 2001 festival with the specially-formed Ensemble Tōzai, which combines western and classical Japanese musicians and repertoires. Her chamber music collaborations also include Principals of Sound, a woodwind and piano ensemble comprising some of the UK’s top wind players, and piano quintets with the Carducci String Quartet. Reiko’s concerts include appearances at the new Stoller Hall in Manchester, the Hebden Bridge Piano Festival, London’s Kings Place, and at Southbank Centre’s newly-refurbished Purcell Room, both as part of the hall’s reopening programme and with ‘Clara 2019’, a specially devised evening of words and music celebrating the life and work of Clara Wieck Schumann.
A highlight of Reiko’s solo career so far is an acclaimed CD of music by Bach, Beethoven and Schubert, released on the Quartz Music label in 2012. In its review, The Arts Desk found the recording “irresistible”. Reiko’s recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, released on Quartz in 2017, received a glowing review from The Record Geijutsu, Japan’s equivalent to The Gramophone, describing it as an “unpretentious, clean and refreshing performance with a refined dignity”.
Reiko has a Website 
Anna Noakes – Flute
Anna Noakes, concerto and recording soloist with BBC Concert Orchestra and RNSO has performed at the QEH, Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room as soloist, recitalist and chamber musician as well as at many of Britain’s most respected Festivals, such as Cheltenham, Brighton, Leicester, Salisbury, City of London and Dartington.
Her playing has inspired composers such as Simon Holt, Martin Yates, Cecilia McDowall, John Ashton Thomas, Dave Heath and Martin Butler to write for her.
Anna has recorded numerous CDs for Dutton, ASV, Naxos and Guild of both solo and chamber music, many of which have received Gramophone Magazine’s coveted ‘Critics Choice’.
Anna broadcasts for BBC Radio3 and Classic FM and works as Guest Principal Flute with the LPO, Philharmonia, RPO, the Orchestras of the Royal Opera House and ENO together with ECO, Northern Sinfonia, CLS, Locrian Ensemble and Britten Sinfonia.
She is also in demand to record the music for Film and TV, scores that include, Kingsman, Golden Circle, James Bond, Lord of the Rings, Stardust, Hugo, Arthur, Chicken Run, Golden Compass, Black Swan, Narnia series, Harry Potter, Shrek, Da Vinci Code, Bridget Jones and Love Actually to name a few.
Professor of Flute at Trinity College of Music for 17 years, Anna has given masterclasses for BFS, RAM, RNCM, GSMD, DIC Dublin, Cork School of Music and is currently the woodwind coach for both World Youth Orchestra, LSSO and Cambridge University.
Anna is a founder member of the South American Folk Ensemble ‘INCA’ and was for ten years the Artistic Director of the Yoxford Arts Festival.
Anna has a Website
Jonathan Williams – French horn
Jonathan has a wide and varied career as a chamber musician. He founded the Gaudier Ensemble with whom he recorded most of the chamber repertoire for horn to much critical acclaim. He has performed with The Koenig Ensemble, Ensemble Modern and Klangforum Vienna. Jonathan has recorded all the major wind repertoire with the Wind Soloists of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, again to much critical acclaim, and was Artistic Director of The Music in Nordland MIN Ensemble in Norway for five years.
As a chamber musician, Jonathan has collaborated in festivals worldwide with artists such as Murray Perahia, Andreas Schiff, Heinz Holliger, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Oscar Shumsky and has appeared at Tanglewood and the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York.
For 30 years Jonathan was principal horn of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and held the same position in the London Philharmonic Orchestra, I Solisti Veneti and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared as guest principal with Lucerne Festival Orchestra, English National Opera, London Mozart Players, Ensemble Modern Orchestra, Camerata Academica Salzburg with Sandor Vegh, The Australian Chamber Orchestra, The New Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Teatro Lirico di Cagliari and Britten Sinfonia.
In the film world Jonathan and his friend, the celebrated Italian film composer Carlo Crivelli, created the Orchestra Citta Aperta in Fossa near L’Aquila, Italy. The orchestra has recorded Crivelli’s scores for Italian films, particularly for the award-winning comedy duo Ficarra e Picone. The orchestra is a training ground where established players sit alongside students and young professionals to coach them in orchestral and film studio performance.
Jonathan’s jazz collaborations have included the Graham Collier album Luminosity with flautist Geoff Warren, the album Mi Ami? with composer and jazz guitarist Battista Lena, and Meeting Rivers with Roberto Olzer.
With fellow legendary horn players Pip Eastop and Richard Bissell, Jonathan recorded Back to Back to Back, an album of improvisations which has recently been re-released, and for the Ensemble Modern label he recorded Crivelli’s In Memoriam Ligeti, Improviso No.2 with Sava Stoianov.
Jonathan has a Website
Peter Quantrill
Peter writes about music and musicians for magazines, record labels and performing arts organisations including Gramophone, The Strad, Pianist, The Arts Desk, Delphian Classics and the Salzburg Festival. He has broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and previously worked with Reiko Fujisawa on concert portraits of Clara Schumann and Beethoven.
Peter has a Website
Reiko: Lucinda Douglas-Menzies
Peter: Marc Mitchell
