International Concert Series 2022-23

An evocative journey exploring the musical terrain of hidden gems for flute, cello and piano. The programme is infused with resonances of nature, landscape and birdsong and includes Bach to Boulanger to Tann. Roderick Chadwick (piano), Clare O'Connell (cello) and Sarah O'Flynn (flute) present this evening's rich and thoughtful programme charting soundscapes of the natural world.

Event programme

Lili Boulanger (1893 - 1918): Nocturne
Elisabeth Lutyens (1906 - 1983): Preludes for piano Op. 126
Dorothy Howell (1898 - 1982): Spindrift
Hilary Tann (b. 1947): Llef
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750): Sonata in B minor BWV 1030
Thea Musgrave (b. 1928): Canta, Canta (arr. Vidovich)
Olivier Messiaen (1908 - 1992): Le Merle Noir
Nadia Boulanger (1887 - 1979): 'No. 1' from Trois Pieces
George Crumb (1929 - 2022): Vox Balaenae for Three Masked Players

About the performers 

Roderick Chadwick is a pianist and writer on music. In recent years he has performed some of the most challenging works for piano, including Lachenmann’s Serynade at the inaugural London Contemporary Music Festival, Stockhausen’s Mantra with Mark Knoop and Newton Armstrong (a highly-regarded recording on the Hathut label), and John McGuire’s 48 Variations, also with Knoop. Other recordings include works by Gloria Coates, Edward Cowie, Maurice Duruflé, Sadie Harrison, Hans Werner Henze and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – several of these with violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved and the Kreutzer Quartet. Roderick is a member of ensembles Chroma and Plus-Minus, appearing with them at festivals such as Huddersfield, Ultima (Oslo) and the Warsaw Autumn Festival. His first performance on BBC Radio 3 was at the age of 14 (the Britten Gemini Variations live from the Aldeburgh Festival), and broadcasts since have included solo works by Laurence Crane, Richard Barrett and Will Gregory. Duo partnerships with several violinists have taken him to venues such as Tokyo Opera City, Auditorium du Louvre, Wigmore Hall and Seoul Arts Centre.

Performer, arranger and curator, cellist Clare O'Connell plays as a soloist and chamber musician. She is a member of visionary ensemble Lontano, the 12-piece cross genre ensemble of multi instrumentalists Propellor and the Storytellers Ensemble; she has a duo partnership with internationally acclaimed harpist Eleanor Turner; and is a regular collaborator with many other chamber music & chamber opera projects. She founded and curates Behind The Mirror: her own series of intimate chamber music concerts in Berkhamsted,  for which she has commissioned many new works from composers Ed Finnis, Alex Mills, Leonardo Margutti, Luke Bedford, David Bruce, Freya Waley Cohen and Rubens Askenar, experimenting with varying instrumental line-ups, making her own arrangements of a vast array of music  for unusual groups of instruments, and interweaving music poetry and storytelling to add another dimension to the concert experience. 

Sarah O’Flynn pursues a demanding and varied career as performer and educator. She has been sub principal flute in Britten Sinfonia since 2006, and is a founding member of the chamber group Chroma. As a freelancer she works with numerous symphony and chamber orchestras throughout the uk, performing and recording in concert halls across the world. Sarah’s work with Britten Sinfonia is rich and diverse, ranging from an unconducted Bach St John Passion to BBC Proms with Rufus Wainwright, Anoushka Shankar, and the Strictly Come Dancing Prom.  As orchestral and chamber musician Sarah has premiered innumerable works and commissions, often working in close collaboration with the composer. She has particularly enjoyed ongoing projects with Tom Ades, Oliver Knussen, James Macmillan and Steve Reich, and has also workshopped hundreds of student compositions with Chroma as Ensemble-in-Residence at Royal Holloway University, Oxford University and the Royal Academy of Music. In 2019 she was the flute soloist for a Signum Classics release of Michael Finnissy’s Pious Anthems and Voluntaries.

Car parking

When you arrive for a College event at our Egham campus, please park in car parks 12 or 4.

Car park 12 can be accessed by turning right as you enter the main College gates and is located next to the tennis courts. If this car park is full, please drive further onto our campus to car park 4, which can be accessed by turning left at the mini-roundabout behind the Students’ Union. We would advise that you bring the College map to campus with you and give yourself plenty of time to park.

Blue Badge holders can find designated parking spaces in Car park 1W, as well as between Gardeners Lodge and the Williams Annexe. You can find these locations by looking at our campus map opposite. If you require any assistance on arrival, please contact our premises team in advance of your visit by emailing: premisesadmin@royalholloway.ac.uk and they will be happy to help.

Please note that we operate an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system on certain parts of our campus, however if you are here for an organised event, parking is unrestricted for event guests in car parks 12, 4 or 14 (or display your blue badge permit if parking in a disabled bay). If you have any questions about parking, please email: premisesadmin@royalholloway.ac.uk