27/04/2017

7:00 PM

Venue

Clementi House


128 Kensington Church Street, London W8 4BH

I Before she embarks on her UK and European tour this fall, American acclaimed cellist Tessa Seymour will play a series of concerts the way they were meant to be experienced: in a small, intimate salon setting.

Join us on Thursday, April 27th at the historic Clementi House for the London debut of her generation’s most distinguished classical cellist. Set in one of the drawing rooms of this magnificent estate, home of composer and pianist Muzio Clementi, Ms. Seymour will play an hour-long concert of solo cello. One hour of exquisite music, part homage to Bach’s classical compositions, part testament to the superb range of Ms. Seymour’s repertoire, featuring wonderful contemporary music by Kodaly, Cassadó, and Ligeti. This is a concert not to miss.

PROGRAMME

Carter Brey Tango para Ilaria
Gaspar Cassadó Preludio-Fantasia, from Suite for Solo Cello
György Ligeti Sonata for Solo Cello
Pēteris Vasks Dolcissimo

Johann Sebastian Bach Suite No. 5 in C Minor, BWV1011
Johann Sebastian Bach Prelude, from Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV1007
Giovanni Sollima Lamentatio

The concert will be followed, naturally, by a wine reception.


Tessa Seymour made her televised Carnegie Hall debut in 2006 and has since been performing in Europe, Asia and the US, both as soloist and a chamber musician. Committed to a repertoire that cuts across genres and brings to life contemporary and established works alike, she has collaborated with and premiered the works of Matthias Pintscher, Krzysztof Penderecki, John Adams, David Ludwig, and Richard Danielpour. Tessa is the recipient of, among others, the Verbier Festival’s “Jean-Nicolas Firmenich” prize for cello, and was named a Jack Kent Cooke Scholar in 2010. She is a regular performer at the Verbier Festival, Napa Valley’s Festival del Sole and the Dresden Music Festival.

Recent appearances include concerts at Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, and the US premiere of Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki’s Suite for Solo Cello at Carnegie Hall. Season performances were heard on WHYY-TV, PBS, as well as NPR and WRTI radio, where she hosted, and appeared in, their program “Philadelphia Music Makers.” She has podcasted with “The Glass Sho,” and Next Big Thing Radio’s “Conversations,” appeared on Vice Munchies, and performed at TEDTalks. This October Tessa will be premiering the Australian electronic and acoustic music composer William Gardiner’s concerto for cello, a work commissioned by composer John Adams and the Berkeley Symphony.

Born in Berkeley in 1993, Tessa first started playing cello at the age of six. She joined the Curtis Institute of Music at 16, where she studied with Carter Brey and Peter Wiley until her graduation in 2015. Tessa’s cello is the 1720 Testore “Camilla” of Milan.

Clementi House was the London home of Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), composer, pianist, and ‘Father of the Pianoforte’ in the words of the composer’s plaque in Westminster Abbey, where he is buried. It was visited by, amongst others, Chopin, Bellini, Joachim, and Ignaz Moscheles. Clementi House is owned by the Clementi House Trust, established in 1983, with its care and custodianship entrusted to the resident Stacey family.