A Piano Postcard - SOUNDINGS Music at Southampton SOUNDINGS Music at Southampton

Tutor in Piano Duncan Honeybourne updates us on his recent performances and recordings:

My latest CD on the EM Records label, recorded in the Turner Sims Concert Hall last year, received four stars in the June edition of the BBC Music Magazine. A Western Borderland features piano music by composers associated with the Welsh border counties and includes world premiere recordings of an early Theme and Variations by Walford Davies (which Honeybourne discovered in manuscript in the RCM Library) and Ivor Gurney’s Five Western Watercolours, plus the impressionistic Fantasy Sonata by Richard Francis, which he premiered in 2007. BBC Music Magazine wrote: It’s fun to hear from Walford Davies in his student days, flamboyantly building up his 1890 Theme and Variations from a docile, hymn-like melody. Honeybourne treats his enterprising repertoire with respect and affection. MusicWeb International reported: Honeybourne has given a wonderful, inspired account of all these pieces….a wonderful CD. The disc has already received several broadcasts on Radio New Zealand Concert and in the USA.

In April, I recorded the complete violin and piano music of Sir Hubert Parry with violinist Rupert Marshall-Luck, for release by EM Records as a 3-CD boxed set this autumn. This summer I have given solo recitals in Belgium, Switzerland and France, as well as in various parts of the UK. The programmes featured music by several British composers, including Sterndale Bennett, who was born 200 years ago, and Rubbra, who died 30 years ago. My recital for Late Music York, in August at St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel, traced a journey through a century of British piano miniatures in a programme entitled Piano Postcards, 1916-2016. Composers included Morfydd Owen, Leo and Evangeline Livens, Constance Warren, John Longmire, Arthur Butterworth and Howard Skempton. 2016 was represented by the world premiere of a Meditation on the Old Welsh Hymn Tune Penllyn, dedicated to me by Welsh composer and RWCMD Lecturer Peter Reynolds, who sadly died suddenly on October 11^th.