Contact Stephen Varcoe (stephen@varcoe.com) to book a place. Find out more about our Song Workshops.

A quote from one of the letters we received after this, our second annual festival, voted even better than last year’s by participants and audiences. Once again the weather gods were soothed by the prospect of mellifluous music into behaving impeccably, and the sunshine and warmth enhanced our theme of Travel, Holidays and Adventures. Eight students of singing spent all day Saturday, and Sunday morning, in intensive masterclasses with Stephen and accompanist Susi Morrow; then in the evening everyone relaxed, and members of the public joined us to enjoy picnics in the summery garden before two wonderful concerts, given by distinguished guest musicians.

Friday night’s concert, a complete sell-out, was a wonderful treat. Renowned actress Prunella Scales joined Stephen in a programme entitled ‘Travelling Hopefully’, an anthology of words and music from exotic travellers’ tales to hilarious holiday experiences, with songs to match.

‘Travelling Hopefully’, with Prunella Scales, Stephen Varcoe and accompanist Christina Lawrie

On Saturday, brilliant young husband and wife duo Marcus Barcham-Stevens and Christina Lawrie took us (and their violin and piano) round Europe on a musical adventure, and Stephen joined Marcus as narrator for a performance of Alan Ridout’s delightful ‘Ferdinand the Bull’.

The final concert on Sunday afternoon saw our eight singing-workshop participants presenting a varied programme of songs to an enthusiastic audience, followed by tea and homemade cakes in the garden.

Singing workshop participants and musicians

It’s clear that we’ve started a new Alphamstone tradition, and we’re already planning for next year’s festival, when we hope to equal (or even exceed?) this year’s triumph – dates to be announced later!

The next one is on Apr 24th, exploring songs by composers with significant anniversaries this year – Mahler, Wolf and Barber among others. Contact Stephen (stephen@varcoe.com) to book a place. Find out more about our Song Workshops.

Then ADVANCE NOTICE, a date for the diary! Our Ansells Summer Music weekend this year runs from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon 2nd – 4th July. More details soon, but places for eight singers to work with Stephen towards presenting a short concert before an audience on the Sunday afternoon.

However, if anyone is interested, please email stephen@varcoe.com to put your name on our waiting list, and of course, receive notification about future dates.

Desert Island Songs

an Entertaining Collection
of Personal Favourites
sung by
Stephen Varcoe
with
Christina Lawrie
at the piano

Aided, Abetted and Compèred by
Andrew Phillips

Tickets £10 reserved, £8 unreserved
available from Compact Music, Sudbury,
or, with SAE, from
Roger Green, 62 Friars Street, Sudbury,
CO10 2AG

The next singing workshop will be in November, and details will be posted here as soon as they are available.

As many of you experienced for yourselves, our first venture into the world of the music festival turned out to be a tremendous success; a magical feast of music, food and wine, with the weather miraculously on our side throughout, which meant that the theme of Summer Songs was in tune with everyone’s mood. It may have been hard work on the part of the singing-students, certainly, who took part in intensive master-classes led by Stephen Varcoe, with Susi Morrow at the piano. But in the relaxed, informal atmosphere of Ansells Barn, which proved an ideal setting for classes and concerts alike, there was an air of enjoyment and conviviality too.

The weekend opened on Friday with an evening programme of music and words, ‘Up the Garden Path’, presented by Stephen with Caroline Holmes. Christina Lawrie accompanied the songs, and played some mouth-watering piano pieces in the same summer garden spirit. Songs and readings ranged from Noel Coward to The Song of Solomon, with all stations in between – great fun, and much appreciated by, we suspect, a fairly knowledgeable gardening audience…

After a day of workshops for the students, Saturday was rounded off by Andrew Marsden’s superb exploration of performances by the great singers of yesteryear, and what an inspiration these old masters of song were! It was utterly fascinating to admire differences and similarities in style and material over more than a hundred years of recording, and to see images of these vanished icons too.

After a morning study-session on Sunday, our seven students presented a programme comprising some of the songs on which they’d been working with Stephen. This delightful afternoon concert (during which the performers’ composure was briefly challenged by a power cut) was followed by scrumptious homemade cakes and tea in the June sunshine, while the roses and pansies bloomed around us and the swallows flitted in and out of the barn where their young joined in the singing! It was idyllic, and we were glad so many local folk chose to join us for all or some of the events on offer. Heroic quantities of delicious food were prepared by Melinda for the participants, and the Music at Ansells team proved efficient and discreet wine-waiters to the concert-goers.

For those of you who missed the weekend, don’t despair – plans are already afoot for next summer, after unanimously positive feedback from both participants and audiences.

We’ll keep you posted!

WEDNESDAY 22 OCTOBER 2008 7.30PM
Youth & Love

WEDNESDAY 29 OCTOBER 2008 7.30PM
Let us Garlands Bring

ST JOHN’S, SMITH SQUARE
LONDON SW1
Box Office: 020 7222 1061

******

Stephen Varcoe, who is widely admired as an exponent of English song, has devised two programmes based around VW’s long and fascinating life. He is joined by James Gilchrist, one of England’s leading tenors, and by pianist and Grainger expert, Penelope Thwaites. They will include songs by some composers seldom heard – Max Bruch, for instance; Michael Mullinar, Gordon Jacob, Elizabeth Maconchy, Denis Browne, Charles Wood, Thomas Dunhill – as well as those great figures of English music, Parry, Stanford and Elgar, and not forgetting Ravel and VW’s great friend Holst. Armstrong Gibbs, Butterworth, Finzi, Ireland and Grainger will also feature.

As for VW himself : there are the two great works On Wenlock Edge and Songs of Travel which form the major focus of the two programmes. There will be folksong settings, some of The House of Life, and songs from the operas. All of this will be knitted together with a narrative about aspects of the great man, and anecdotes from him and his friends. A highly entertaining pair of evenings, giving a picture of the variety and broadness of VW’s achievement.