MALVERN Concert Club closes this spectacular concert season on Thursday, April 23 with the team of international soprano Carolyn Sampson and pianist Joseph Middleton, performing their recent programme Fleurs, a recital which looks to flowers for inspiration.

They have recorded this recital for BIS Records, and perform it in Malvern for us as part of their European tour.

Equally at home on the concert and opera stages, Carolyn Sampson has enjoyed notable successes in the UK as well as throughout Europe and the US, and has been described as ‘the best British early music soprano by quite some distance’ (Gramophone) and comes to Malvern fresh from her Carnegie Hall debut. A consummate recitalist, she appears regularly as an artist in residence at the Wigmore Hall as well as at international festivals.

Joseph has been described as ‘one of the brightest stars in the world of song and Lieder’ (BBC Music Magazine); he has also be labelled as ‘the cream of the new generation’ by The Times.

Fleurs features songs by composers including Fauré, Debussy, Schumann, Schubert, Strauss, Quilter and Britten, sung in Russian, English, French and German. The recital spans a period of over 250 years from excerpts of the English baroque master Henry Purcell’s Songs, Odes and Elegies in the latter part of the 17th century to Britten’s 1965 work, The Poet’s Echo, incorporating works of Schumann and Schubert along the way. Carolyn’s facility with early music provides the interpretive backbone of the recital, lacing them together to explore the messages that can be sent through the flower.

It’s another international standard ‘don’t miss’ on Thursday, April 23 from Malvern Concert Club!

SARAH MUSGRAVE