Creation, promotion and performance of an annual festival of English Song in London, with associated educational workshops. Promotion of the knowledge and performance of the art of English Song.
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Total raised so far £3,695
+ est. £685.00
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Who we are
The London English Song Festival is a charity dedicated to nurturing the legacy and widening the knowledge of English song and oratorio in London and throughout the U.K., founded by conductor and pianist William Vann.
Why and How?
In this country we have often been reticent in championing English and British music, a reluctance which the LESF aims to redress. Our performances and recordings explore less well-known areas of the repertory alongside more well-known repertoire. Our 2015 celebration of the songs of Ralph Vaughan Williams revived music that had not been performed in this country for many decades and our Songs of the Somme shows at Wilton’s Music Hall broke new ground in the field of dramatised performance, bringing together film from the Imperial War Museum archives, art song and music hall numbers from the war years and profound poetry by some of the most renowned war writers.
Our 2019/20 project culminated in the performance of Hubert Parry’s stunning oratorio Judith for the first time in London in over a century. We subsequently created the world premiere recording of this neglected masterpiece with Chandos Records, a disc that received glowing reviews in the national press, was BBC Radio 3 Record of the Week and was nominated for a 2020 Gramophone Award in the Choral category.
2022: recording Parry’s Prometheus Unbound
In September 2022 we will again partner with Chandos Records, Crouch End Festival Chorus and the London Mozart Players to make the world premiere recording of Parry’s first major work for chorus, soloists and orchestra, his cantata Prometheus Unbound. Written for the Gloucester Festival in 1880, it is a powerful and dramatic work, strongly influenced by Wagner yet showing clear signs of Parry’s developing, individual compositional voice, yet has astonishingly never been recorded. A stunning line-up has been assembled for our recording this September, including some of the finest British singing talent, with which we hope to restore this work to the contemporary musical consciousness once more.
Support us
The London English Song Festival is only able break new boundaries in the field of English music with the help of its supporters, to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude. As a donor, you will receive regular updates about our projects and we will let you know about our future plans before they are made public. Your support is hugely important and greatly appreciated. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’d like to talk more about how any money you donate will be spent, or your level of involvement with our projects. The London English Song Festival is a registered charity (number 1159818), and as such any monies received and any profits made will be ploughed into our current and future projects.
