Paul Jackson

St Augustine's Singers: Petite Messe Solennelle
2024-11-09 18:00 - 19:30 UTC
The St Augustine’s Singers, conducted by Paul Jackson, perform Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle as part of the Remembrance Sunday commemorations.

Conductor: Paul JacksonPiano: Philip MeadHarmonium: Maurice HodgesSoprano: Jessica KinneyAlto: Ute Leptit-ClareTenor: Simon CarterBass: Alistair Bamford

St Augustine’s Church and Community CentreRichmond RoadCambridgeCB4 3PS

The Young Grainger and His Circle
2024-09-15 14:00 - 16:00 | Percy Grainger Home and Studio, 7 Cromwell Place, White Plains, New York, 10601, United States
Percy Grainger’s youthful studies at the Hoch Conservatorium in Frankfurt am Main brought him into contact with a group of fellow composers who were to influence him throughout his life. The ‘Frankfurt Gang’, as this group of would-be world changers became known, comprised Grainger, Cyril Scott, Roger Quilter, Henry Balfour Gardiner, and Norman O’Neill, and their mission was to establish a new and radical English music style, in stark contrast to the prevailing German musical outlook that seemed to them to be ubiquitous. In 1907, Grainger met Frederick Delius, with whom he achieved an immediate rapport, since the two musicians had similar ideas about composition and harmony, and also shared a dislike for the classical German masters. Both were inspired by folk music; Grainger gave Delius his setting of the folk song Brigg Fair, which Delius developed into his famous orchestral rhapsody, dedicated to Grainger. This presentation will explore these collegial relationships with special reference to never-before-seen letters and documents recently discovered in the Grainger Home and Studio.

The event is part of the ongoing series, Third Sundays. It is free and open to the public. Due to space limitations, registration is encouraged.

Percy Grainger occupied the house at 7 Cromwell Place from 1921 until his death in 1961, using it as his home base for his world tours, practice studio, and laboratory for his avant-garde musical compositions and experimental music machines. After Percy Grainger’s death in 1961, his widow Ella continued to live in the house until her passing in 1979. This historic house, built in 1893, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in April 1993.

Song Recital
2024-08-14 13:10 - 14:00 | HTH Church, Robertson Street, Hastings, TN34 1HT, United Kingdom
A lunchtime concert of folk-inspired music sung by Marina Karagianni, and accompanied by Paul Jackson. Music by Ravel, Obradors, Lavilla, Montsalvatge,and Constantinidis.

Programme

Fernando Obradors – Canciones clásicas españolas

Félix Lavilla – Quatro canciones Vascas

Xavier Montsalvatge – Cançó amorosa, Cinco canciones negras

Maurice Ravel – Cinq mélodies populaires grecques

Ioannis Constantinidis – Three Greek folksongs

Habaneras de la Costa Brava – El Abanico

Haslingfield Choir and Orchestra: The Turning of the World
2024-06-22 19:30 - 21:30 | All Saints’ Church, Church Way, Haslingfield, CB23 1JF
Haslingfield Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Paul Jackson, present an evening an evening of readings and seasonal music by Joseph Haydn, Gustav Holst,  Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten, Percy Grainger, and Edward German

Baritone: Alistair BamfordReciter: Heidi GjertsenReciter: Ansy Stephen

St Augustine's Singers: Love is Love
2024-06-15 18:00 - 19:00 | St Augustine’s Church, Richmond Road, Cambridge
As part of Cambridge Pride, the St Augustine’s Singers perform music by Britten, Smyth and the Beatles.

ProgrammeBenjamin Britten – Hymn to St CeciliaEthel Smyth – The March of the WomenBeatles – All You Need Is LoveFrances Poulenc – Sonata for Flute and Piano

St Augustine's Singers: Landbeach Bells
2024-04-27 18:00 - 18:45 | All Saints’ Church, Green End, Landbeach, Cambridge, CB25 9FD
In a special concert to celebrate the installation of two new tower bells at All Saints’ Church, Landbeach, the St Augustine’s Singers perform two works by the choir’s founder, Philip Mead, together with a setting of the Welsh lullaby Suo Gân.

ProgrammeMead – The NightingaleMead – Landbeach BellsTraditional – Suo Gân

Music of the Ether
2024-04-24 13:00 - 14:00 | Vestry Hall, Ranelagh Road, Ealing, W5 5RJ
Charlie Draper and Paul Jackson present a concert of music for the earliest electronic musical instruments, the theremin. The concert includes well-known music by Saint-Saëns, Rachmaninoff and Gershwin, together with original music written for the instruments. The performance will be interspersed with explanations and demonstrations of this fascinating instrument.

ProgrammeCamille Saint-Saëns – ‘The Swan’ from Carnival of the AnimalsSergei Rachmaninoff – VocaliseClaude Debussy – Clair de LuneBernard Herrmann – The Day the Earth Stood StillGeorge Gershwin – ‘Summertime’ from Porgy and BessJim Parker – Midsomer MurdersMiklós Rózsa – Spellbound Concerto

Haslingfield Choir and Orchestra: Fauré Requiem
2024-03-23 19:30 - 21:30
All Saints’ Church, Haslingfield Road, Barrington, CB22 7RE

Haslingfield Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Paul Jackson, perform Gabriel Fauré’s beautiful Requiem.

ProgrammeFauré – RequiemBruckner – Locus Iste, Pange LinguaFranck – Panis AngelicusWarlock – Capriol SuiteVaughan Williams – Fantasia on GreensleevesElgar – Serenade for Strings

Further information at: https://haslingfieldchoir.org.uk/next-concert.php

St Augustine's Singers: Nelson Mass
2024-03-09 18:00 - 19:00
St Augustine’s Church, Richmond Road, Cambridge CB4 3PS

The St Augustine’s Singers, conducted by Paul Jackson, perform Haydn’s Nelson Mass.

Soprano: Shiona CormackAlto: Ute Lepetit-ClareTenor: Sam MaddenBass: Alistair Bamford

Admission free (with retiring collection)

Saffron Opera Group: The Marriage of Figaro
2024-02-25 14:30 - 18:00
Saffron Hall, Audley End Road, Saffron Walden, CB11 4UH

Saffron Opera Group brings Mozart’s sparkling comedy of romantic misunderstandings to life with a luxury cast of internationally renowned singers – including many who have become favourites with SOG audiences – and dazzling new stars. Come and be delighted by Mozart’s ravishing melodies, and tickled by one of the opera world’s most deliciously witty plots. Join Saffron Opera Group as it celebrates ten joyous years of acclaimed performances, including a complete Ring Cycle and operas by Mozart and Strauss: ‘incandescent’ (Opera Magazine), ‘highest international standards’ (Wagner News), ‘spellbinding’ (The Guardian).

Further information at: www.saffronhall.com/whats-on/view/saffron-opera-group-3

Mifune Tsuji Trio
2024-01-24 13:00 - 14:00
Downing Place URC, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EL

Renowned violinist Mifune Tsuji, pianist Paul Jackson and saxophonist Jin Theriault perform as a unique trio, playing solo and trio pieces from around the world. The three musicians have been performing together since 2012. The eclectic programme includes two original works, Marc Eychenne’s Cantilène et danse and Wolfgang Jacobi’s Kleine Stücke, the earliest-known work for this combination of instruments. Rebecca Clarke’s atmospheric Dumka is one of this little-known British-American composer’s most celebrated chamber works, while Fushicho (Phoenix) conveys the subtle intricacies of the Japanese shakuhachi in a version for solo saxophone. The concert concludes with the trio’s new arrangement of Esqualo, by the Argentinian tango composer, Astor Piazzolla.

ProgrammeMarc Eychenne – Cantilène et danseRebecca Clarke – DumkaRyo Noda – FushichoWolfgang Jacobi – Kleine StückeAstor Piazzolla – Esqualo

Free Admission

Further information at: https://downingplaceurc.org/lunchtime-concerts

Newtown Ensemble: Poulenc's Piano Concerto
2024-01-13 19:00 - 21:30 | Stockbridge Parish Church, 7b Saxe Coburg Street, Edinburgh, EH3 5BN, United Kingdom
Poulenc’s Piano Concerto is performed by Paul Jackson, with the Newtown Ensemble, conducted by Michael Thorne.

Programme:

Hindemith – Nobilissime Visione

Poulenc – Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor

Sibelius – Symphony No. 7

2023 Grainger Symposium: Lines of Beauty
2023-12-07 00:00 - 00:30
Join the University of Melbourne’s Grainger Museum for a symposium exploring music history, composition, and performance in the context of innovation, exploration and engagement with new media and new technologies.

Hear an international panel of academics and researchers respond to historical and contemporary ideas of music, new media and the archive. Topics range from historical considerations of the genres and technologies dominant during the lifetime of Percy Grainger (1882–1961) to current digital media responses to music research and material in music museums and archives.

Session 2: Percy Grainger and Musical Experimentation11:00am: Paul Jackson (Independent) – Lines of Beauty: The Development of Graphic Notation in the Music of Percy Grainger11:30am: Teresa R. Balough (Eastern Connecticut State University) – The Wider Implications of Percy Grainger’s ‘Free Music’12:00pm: Katherine Pittman (University of California San Diego) – Hearing Queer Hybridity in Percy Grainger’s Experimental Instruments

New Palace Opera: The Rake's Progress
2023-12-03 18:30 - 21:00 | Holy Sepulchre, Holborn Viaduct, London
A concert performance of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress by New Palace Opera, conducted by Michael Thorne.

Haslingfield Choir and Orchestra: Christmas Oratorio
2023-12-02 19:30 - 21:30 | All Saints’ Church, Church Way, Haslingfield, CB23 1JF
Haslingfield Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Paul Jackson, perform parts 4–6 of JS Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.

Soprano – Ruth MurphyAlto – Ute Lepetit-ClareTenor – Owen ElsleyBass – Oscar Simms

Mifune Tsuji Trio
2023-11-08 18:00 - 19:00 | Hughes Hall, Cambridge, CB1 2EW
We are delighted to be welcoming back the renowned violinist Mifune Tsuji, pianist Paul Jackson and saxophonist Jin Theriault who perform as a unique trio, playing solo and trio pieces from around the world.

Enjoy an hour of relaxed evening music, to include pieces by Marc Eychenne, Rebecca Clarke, Ryo Noda, and Astor Piazzolla.

ProgrammeMarc Eychenne: Cantilène et danseRebecca Clarke: DumkaRyo Noda: FushichoAstor Piazzolla: Grand TangoAstor Piazzolla: Esqualo

All welcome, including non college members. Please sign up via the Eventbrite link click here

Song Recital
2023-09-22 12:00 - 13:00 | St Leonard’s Church, Hythe, Kent
A lunchtime concert of folk-inspired music sung by Marina Karagianni, and accompanied by Paul Jackson. Music by Ravel, Obradors, Lavilla, Montsalvatge,and Constantinidis.

Programme

Fernando Obradors – Canciones clásicas españolasFélix Lavilla – Quatro canciones VascasXavier Montsalvatge – Cançó amorosa, Cinco canciones negrasMaurice Ravel – Cinq mélodies populaires grecquesIoannis Constantinidis – Three Greek folksongsHabaneras de la Costa Brava – El Abanico

Music of the Ether
2023-09-20 19:30 - 21:30 | St Matthew’s Church, 27A The Drive, Kingsley, NN1 4RY, United Kingdom
Charlie Draper and Paul Jackson present an evening of music for the earliest electronic musical instruments, the theremin, and the ondes Martenot. The concert includes well-known music by Saint-Saëns, Rachmaninoff and Gershwin, together with original music written for the instruments, accompanied by film. The performance will be interspersed with explanations and demonstrations of these fascinating instruments.

Programme

Camille Saint-Saëns – ‘The Swan’ from Carnival of the AnimalsSergei Rachmaninoff – VocalisePierre Vellones – Fantaisie for ondes Martenot and pianoJoseph Schillinger – Mouvement Électrique et PathétiqueDarius Milhaud – Suite for ondes Martenot and pianoGeorge Gershwin – ‘Summertime’ from Porgy and BessOlivier Messiaen – ‘Jardin du sommeil d’amour’ from Turangalîla-SymphonieRichard Rodney Bennett – Serenade No. 2Miklós Rózsa – Spellbound Concerto

Free Music Machine: Third Sundays Focus Tour
2023-09-17 14:00 - 16:00 | Percy Grainger Home and Studio, 7 Cromwell Place, White Plains, New York, 10601, United States
We invite you to register for our next Third Sunday tour of the Percy Grainger Home and Studio, September 17, 2023 at 2 pm EDT. The Third Sundays program is an outreach initiative, led by volunteers, and designed to welcome diverse groups through focused, thematic tours. We are pleased to announce that Percy Grainger Society President, Dr. Paul Jackson, will be leading the September tour, offering a closer look at Grainger’s approach to and work on Free Music. The presentation will be centred around the newly-conserved Gliding Tones on Whistle, Notes on Recorders machine, one of only two only remaining examples of Grainger’s Free Music machines. This event is free and open to the public, but due to space limitations, registration is encouraged.

Book Launch: Till Life Become Fire
2023-09-15 22:00 - 23:00 | Virtual via Zoom
Join Teresa R. Balough in conversation with PGS President, Paul Jackson, at the Percy Grainger Home and Studio, for the launch of her new biography.

What goes into the making of a creative genius and how can their gifts be used to help uplift humankind? These were questions that led the Australian/American pianist, composer, and music educator Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882–1961) to exhaustively document his life, his thoughts, and his associations and establish in the country of his birth a museum dedicated to helping answer those questions. Grainger was a creative genius who thought more in terms of the future than of the present and was an advocate for the role that music can play in creating a more harmonious and loving future for humankind. This book is the first attempt to bring together in one volume the details of Grainger’s life as they relate to his music using his own words and those of the people who knew him. It makes use of many heretofore unpublished documents and musical examples and is written in such a way as to be accessible to all while also offering a detailed study of his musical works.

The Life and Work of Percy Aldridge Grainger: Till Life Become Fire is published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Tone Rhythm Pitch: Exploring Percy Grainger's Free Music
2023-09-14 17:00 - 19:00 | Percy Grainger Home and Studio, 7 Cromwell Place, White Plains, New York, 10601, United States
Drawing its inspiration from the sounds of nature, and free from the constraints of conventional rhythm and individual pitch, Grainger’s lifetime passion was free music. From an early age, he imagined music that would glide continuously across the pitch spectrum, without the need for metrical rhythms and, ultimately, without the need for a performer; the composers’ ideas would be translated directly into sound.

Elements of Free Music can be found in much of Grainger’s instrumental and vocal compositions, where the use of sliding notes and irregular rhythms often feature. Between 1935 and 1937, Grainger wrote three short pieces – Free Music No. 1, Free Music No. 2 and Beatless Music – which further demonstrated his ideas in practice. Grainger regarded all of his music up to this point as merely a stepping-stone to the full development of Free Music, and he was to increasingly devote his time to this from the late 1940s onwards. Using his White Plains home as a studio, he worked alongside his wife, Ella, and in close collaboration with a young physicist, William Burnett Cross, to design and built machines that were able to produce Free Music without the involvement of a human performer.

Most of the machines, given Graingeresque names such as the Side-Ridge Clothes-Line-&-Scotch-Tape-Tin Oscillator-Player, or the Kangaroo-Pouch Method of Synchronising & Playing 8 Oscillators, were constructed from wood, paper, cardboard, string, and other found objects scavenged from the house, local hardware stores and the immediate locale. The machines were in a constant state of flux and were often dismantled or repurposed as soon as sounds were recorded. The final machine, the Electric Eye, remained unfinished at the time of Grainger’s death, but was the most sophisticated and was able to produce seamless electronic pitch glides. It is this machine that places Grainger’s experiments in electronic music squarely alongside other experimental composers.

Saffron Opera Group: Der Rosenkavalier
2023-09-10 14:30 - 19:00 | Saffron Hall, Audley End Road, Saffron Walden, Essex, CB11 4UH
A concert performance of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier by Saffron Opera Group, conducted by Michael Thorne.

Haslingfield Choir: Love Songs
2023-07-01 18:00 - 19:30 | All Saints’ Church, Church Way, Haslingfield, CB23 1JF
Haslingfield Choir performs Brahms’s Liebeslieder and Neue Liebeslieder Waltzes.
Conductor – Paul Jackson
Piano Duet – Maurice Hodges and Thanea Hodges
Soprano – Anna-Luise WagnerAlto – Ute Lepetit-ClareTenor – Simon Macarenhas-CarterBass – Alistair Bamford
Speaker – Dale Savage

Vltava: English and French Piano Music
2023-06-10 21:00 - 22:00 | MS Elbe Princesse, Vltava, Czech Republic
Programme

Percy Aldridge Grainger: Blithe Bells, Knight and Shepherd’s Daughter, The Merry King

Cyril Scott: Lotus Land

Francis Poulenc: Novelette in C major

Claude Debussy: ‘Bruyères’, from Préludes, book II, Deux Arabesques, Clair de Lune

Vltava: Pictures of Bohemia
2023-06-07 21:00 - 22:00 | MS Elbe Princesse, Vltava, Czech Republic
Programme

Antonín Dvořák: ‘Serenade’, ‘Tittle-Tattle’, ‘At the Hero’s Grave’, and ‘On the Holy Mount’ from Poetic Tone Pictures, op. 85

Bedřich Smetana: ‘Friendly Landscape’, from Sketches, op. 5, no. 3

Bohuslav Martinů: ‘Columbine Dances’, from Puppets, book I

Leoš Janáček: ‘The Barn Owl Has Not Flown Away’, from On an Overgrown Path

Miloslav Kabeláč: Preludio ostinato

Peter Eben: Bells Before the Lights Go Out

Mifune Tsuji Trio
2023-05-31 13:00 - 14:00 | Downing Place URC, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EL
Mifune Tsuji and Paul Jackson, from the Mifune Tsuji Trio, perform music for violin, and piano, including JS Bach’s Sonata in A major, BWV 1015, Nimrod Borenstein’s Quasi una cadenza for solo violin, Michio Miyagi’s Haro No Umi, Astor Piazzolla’s Le Grand Tango, and the traditional Japanese song Karatachi-no-hana.

Threads: Music for Voice and Piano
2023-04-29 19:30 - 21:30 | Lauderdale House, Highgate Hill, Waterlow Park, London, N6 5HG
David Ryan has curated this evening featuring performances of his recent works for voice and piano together with two pieces by the American composer Terry Jennings.

The ‘threads’ of the title refers to the interconnection of poetic texts, from contemporary author Martha Kapos, to Richard Brautigan, Walt Whitman, all the way back to ancient Greek and Roman epigrams, resulting in the songs themselves being an interweaving through these different temporalities and approaches to sound. It also refers to the inclusion of two piano pieces by Terry Jennings. Jennings is the least known of the minimalist innovators of the 1960s, but he was an important and influential part of the La Monte Young/Yoko Ono scene of the early 1960s; his music remains seldom performed and unpublished, although it has a hypnotic and tranquil beauty. Significant works by Jennings will be featured in each half of the concert, Winter Sun (1965) and Winter Trees (1966). Ryan has commented, “I see Jennings’ music as a thread, even if from a very different perspective, connecting with my own approach to sound and space in composition, and so brings here an archival connection to this current project”.

Cristina Grifone has performed with leading ensembles including the Nuova Orchestra Alessandro Scarlatti, Musica Fiorita Ensemble and Orchestra, and Antonio Florio’s I Turchini, for many concerts. She has also been involved, in parallel, with contemporary music. Recordings have featured her singing Handel, Veneziano, Cimarosa, Perti, and Porpora for Glossa, Pan Classics, and Brilliant Classics labels.

Paul Jackson is a pianist, conductor, musicologist and lecturer, based in Cambridge, UK. He has performed many modern and contemporary works including concertos by Stravinsky, Bartok and orchestral works by Berio. An authority on the music of the Australian composer, Percy Grainger, he is Editor of The Grainger Journal and President of the Percy Grainger Society, based in New York.

David Ryan is a visual artist as well as improvising musician. Although mainly autodidact as a composer, he received some lessons from jazz musician Don Rendell. Recent compositions include Aphorisms 1-3, (2019 – 22) Fields and Refrains (2021) and Inscriptions (2021–2022) which has been recently performed at Ljubljana City Museum, Slovenia and Schrattenbach Opera, Olomouc, Czech Republic.

Music of the Ether
2023-03-28 18:00 - 19:00 | Hughes Hall, Cambridge, CB1 2EW
Charlie Draper and Paul Jackson present a programme of music with film, played on the earliest electronic musical instruments, the theremin and the ondes Martenot, with piano accompaniment.

Programme includes:

Pierre Vellones: Fantaisie

Joseph Schillinger: Mouvement Électrique et Pathétique

Darius Milhaud: Suite for ondes Martenot and piano

Riccard Valente: Complaint

Olivier Messiaen: ‘Jardin du sommeil d’amour’ from Turangalîla-Symphonie

Richard Rodney Bennett: Serenade No. 2

Miklós Rózsa: Spellbound Concerto

Music of the Ether
2023-03-27 18:00 - 19:00 | Music Recital Hall, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge, CB1 1PT

Haslingfield Choir and Orchestra: Jommelli Requiem
2023-03-25 19:30 - 21:30 | All Saints’ Church, Church Way, Haslingfield, CB23 1JF
Haslingfield Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Paul Jackson, perform Niccolò Jommelli’s beautiful Requiem (Missa pro defunctis), and Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus and the Serenata in G major, K. 525, ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’.
