I would choose: ...

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson chose April, but what will this year's artists choose when asked to select their favorite composers and works?

Date
Time
15:00–16:15
Venue
Risør kirke

Choose calendar

Google CalendarOutlook / Microsoft 365Apple / iCal (.ics)
Concert has concluded
Publikummer nyter musikk i Risør kirke
Foto: Liv Øvland

About the concert

Tine let go of the wheel and gave the artists the chance to choose works for this concert themselves. It resulted in wishes for specific works, but also in the chance to play with artists they had never met before. The result includes Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Vaughan Williams's Songs of Travel, and Bartók's duets for two violas.

What lies closest to the heart does not always find room in a hectic performing career. Here, these world stars get the chance to perform what they themselves most want to play.

Additional Content

Concert Programme

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Songs of Travel

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958): From Songs of Travel (1901–04)

Text by Robert Louis Stevenson

  • The Vagabond
  • The Roadside Fire
  • Whither Must I Wander
  • Youth and Love
  • I Have Trod the Upward and Downward Slope

Vaughan Williams's first song cycle, composed in 1901-1904 to poems by Robert Louis Stevenson. Roderick and Isata have chosen five songs that give an insight into a musical language with a clear imprint of English folk music.

Performers:

  • Roderick Williams, baritone
  • Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano

For Isata, as a young artist with Caribbean-African roots, it was a strong wish to perform with Roderick Williams, who has Welsh-Jamaican roots and has paved the way for British artists with multicultural backgrounds.

Roderick Williams: Knepp Piano Trio

Roderick Williams (1965*): Knepp Piano Trio (2019)

Performers:

  • Trio Leikínn

It may not be as a composer that Roderick Williams is best known to us here in Norway. This beautiful trio is based on a folk melody.

Lili Boulanger: Trois morceaux pour piano

Lili Boulanger (1893–1918): Trois morceaux pour piano (1914)

  • D'un Vieux Jardin
  • D'un Jardin Clair
  • Cortège

Performers:

  • Alexandra Dariescu, piano

Alexandra would gladly have had three hours for her own concert, Up Close with Alexandra, right before this one. We therefore gave her the chance to perform one of her favourites, Lili Boulanger, during this concert.

Amanda Maier-Röntgen: From 6 Pieces for Violin and Piano

Amanda Maier-Röntgen (1853–1894): From 6 Pieces for Violin and Piano (c. 1879)

  • Allegro molto. Leidenschaftlich
  • Lento
  • Allegro, ma non troppo. Frisch, schwedisch

Performers:

  • Johan Dalene, violin
  • Gunnar Flagstad, piano

Johan is a Swedish-Norwegian violinist, but in this concert he wanted to highlight his Swedish sister in music and fellow composer. In Johan's eyes, and ears, she is a composer who deserves to be brought forward.

George Gershwin: From Porgy and Bess

George Gershwin (1898–1937): From Porgy and Bess (arr. Heifetz)

  • Summertime
  • A Woman Is a Sometime Thing
  • Bess, You Is My Woman Now
  • It Ain't Necessarily So

This is the best-known contribution to the operatic canon from the American continent. The premiere took place in New York on October 10, 1935, and Gershwin himself referred to the work as America's folk opera. With impulses from African American folk music, gospel, jazz, and blues, the entire opera and individual pieces such as Summertime have lived a long life on and off opera stages.

It is also worth noting the arranger of this little suite. It is none other than one of the world's greatest violin virtuosos, Jascha Heifetz. In other words, many musical icons have a hand in this concert.

Performers:

  • Arabella Steinbacher, violin
  • Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano

Artists

See all artists →