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The University of Southampton
MusicPart of Humanities

New CD Launch with Southampton Music Professor

Published: 20 April 2017
Professor David Owen Norris

A new CD recording of songs composed by Sir Arthur Sullivan is being launched this month by Chandos Records at an event at the Conway Hall in London on Tuesday 25th April. The recording features Southampton Professor of Music and Head of Keyboard Studies David Owen Norris as pianist, together with a number of young singers: Mary Bevan, Ben Johnson and Ashley Riches.

The launch concert of the CD of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s songs is a major staging-post on a long journey for Professor Norris, as he says:  "I’ve been playing Sullivan’s music for many years, of course, and in the course of my investigations I’ve written about Tennyson and Lewis Carroll, I’ve recorded all the songs of Sullivan’s teacher Sir William Sterndale Bennett, I’ve put on concert series featuring Sullivan along with other composers who studied in Leipzig, and I’ve presented a whole day devoted to Sullivan’s songs for Gresham College. I even persuaded our Nuffield Theatre here at Southampton to put on the opera that Sullivan’s other teacher, John Hullah, wrote with Charles Dickens, The Village Coquettes – the first professional production for 150 years. Quite a bit of context, then, and the more you find out about the context, the more the music means to you, and the more you can make it mean to today’s audience – one of the strong points about studying music at a university, of course.”

The launch event is free, including a recital by David and the singers. Full event and booking details can be found here: rhinegold.co.uk   

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