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Nov
15
Thu
Ben Crosland Brass Group @ Lauderdale House
Nov 15 @ 8:30 pm – 9:30 pm

with Steve Lodev (keyboards), Steve Waterman & Martin Shaw (tpts,), Mark Nightingale & Barnaby Dickinson (tmbs)

Ben Crosland, acoustic and electric bass player, is based in Yorkshire and assembled this premier-league brass section to realise a commission from the 2011 Marsden Jazz Festival, inspired by the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, An Open Place. The compositions are inspired by specific pieces, such as Henry Moore’s Reclining Figures, and Barbara Hepworth’s Family of Man, the whole composition is suffused with the gentle, pastoral quality of the Park. A project like this would be easy meat for a classical brass group, but here the fascination is how some of the most technically-brilliant brassmen of the jazz world preserve the excitement of jazz, spontaneity and creativity without ‘raising the roof’, which in other circumstances they could easily do.

See event website.

May
1
Wed
Marx and the Village Community @ The Chapel at Highgate Cemetery
May 1 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm

In this lecture, Professor Gareth Stedman Jones looks at the last decade and a half of Marx’s life, a period in which he effectively gave up further work on Capital and read up instead on the village community and the early history of man. He was interested in particular in the new work on pre-history which developed from the 1860s onwards connecting this with a notion of primitive communism and an epoch in history before patriarchy and political hierarchy.

Professor Gareth Stedman Jones is Director of the Centre for History and Economics, Cambridge, and a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge University since 1974. He was Professor of Political Science, History Faculty, Cambridge University from 1997 and in 2010 became Professor of the History of Ideas at Queen Mary, University of London. His publications include An End to Poverty? (2004), a long introduction to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (2002), and The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought, co-edited with Gregory Claeys, 2011.

He is currently working on an intellectual biography of Marx commissioned by Penguin and a more general work on political thought between the French Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848.

Doors open at 7pm and wine and nibbles will be served. The talk starts promptly at 7.30pm and will last about an hour.

Tickets are non-refundable but, as a courtesy to others, please let us know if you cannot attend.

Nov
23
Thu
Highgate Debate: This house believes that gender equality is unachievable @ Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution
Nov 23 @ 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm

Free and open to all but do phone to book your place. In these lively debates, prominent and informed speakers argue their points of view on issues of current importance. They are ‘seconded’ by pupils from local schools, and audience members also have the opportunity to sway the opinion of those attending.

The motion: This House Believes that Gender Equality is Unachievable

Proposing: Ann Hussey, QC and barrister specialising in family law 

Opposing: Vicky Pryce, economist and former joint head of the UK government economic service

Nov
25
Sat
Highgate International Chamber Music Festival @ St. Michael's Church
Nov 25 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Highgate International Chamber Music Festival @ St. Michael's Church | England | United Kingdom

Programme

Haydn: Piano Trio No.39 in G, Hob XV:25, ‘Gypsy’

Arensky: String Quartet No.2 in A minor Op.35

Dvorak: String Sextet in A, Op.48

 

 

Artists

Evgenia Epshtein, Benjamin Gilmore & Natalie Klouda – violin

Ruth Gibson & Alexandros Koustas – viola

Matthijs Broersma & Ashok Klouda – cello

Irina Botan – piano

Dec
19
Tue
the meritus collective @ Lauderdale House
Dec 19 @ 1:15 pm – 2:15 pm

 

the meritus collective

The Meritus Collective was established to bring together musicians of all instruments who shared a passion for chamber music and to provide platforms from which to perform. Members have trained at most of the major conservatoires in Britain and between them have performed as parts of chamber groups all around the world and for orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonia Orchestra.

Meritus was the pseudonym of Felix Mendelssohn given to the young composer by Robert Schumann. It translates roughly as ‘happy through merit’ and is an inspiring and effective byword for this young and dynamic group of musicians who will be bringing a varied and exciting set of programmes to Lauderdale House over the coming year.

The Meritus Collective will perform a selection of works for flute, clarinet and string.

Programme details to be confirmed

Oct
12
Sat
Saturdays at Six Concert – Douglas Bruce (Organ) @ St Michael's Church
Oct 12 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Every second Saturday of the month we host our popular Saturdays at Six concert series. Programmes range from organ recitals to chamber groups to soloists and choirs. Concerts run from 6-7pm and there is a retiring collection.

Dec
14
Sat
Saturdays at Six Concert – Paul Dean (Organ) – Messiaen – La Nativite du Seigneur @ St Michael's Church
Dec 14 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Every second Saturday of the month we host our popular Saturdays at Six concert series. Programmes range from organ recitals to chamber groups to soloists and choirs. Concerts run from 6-7pm and there is a retiring collection.

May
23
Sun
Pentecost – A New Devotional Performance By Jonathan Byrd @ St Augustine's Church Highgate London UK
May 23 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm

A Pentecost performance of uplifting and (hopefully) sunlit sacred music on the Spanish Guitar.

“A sequence of timeless emotions, such as awe, reverence, ecstasy, penitence, prayer, gratitude, rapture, worship, praise, ardour, resolve, Jonathan Byrd’s music presences us at the Holy Spirit’s descent as the disciples’ likely knew it”

 

 

Dec
10
Fri
“Now May We Singen”: A Christmas concert @ St. Mary Brookfield Church
Dec 10 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Get into the Christmas spirit with an evening of sacred music, popular festive songs and traditional carols from acclaimed choir Voxcetera. 

Enjoy beautiful choral works spanning 400 years, from anthems by Byrd and Praetorius to contemporary composers including John Rutter, Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen and Cecilia McDowall. And there’ll be dazzling arrangements of popular songs and carols such as Winter Wonderland, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and Ding Dong Merrily on High.

It isn’t Christmas without a Christmas concert – so why not start the season in beautiful surroundings with joyous, tranquil and uplifting music.

Mar
26
Sat
Fauré: Requiem and sublime short works @ St. Michael's Church
Mar 26 @ 7:30 pm – 9:15 pm

Voxcetera chamber choir sings Gabriel Fauré’s much-loved, moving masterpiece, with soloists Ellie and Jamie Sperling, accompanied by violin, cello, harp and organ.

The concert will also feature Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine; a selection from Gustav Holst’s Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, a collection of ancient Indian sacred texts; and Henry Balfour Gardiner’s dramatic Evening Hymn.

And you’ll hear beautiful music from contemporary composers: the hypnotic Northern Lights by Ola Gjeilo; and Paul Aryes’ sun-drenched love song Quanto sei bella.

Voxcetera is a north London-based chamber choir, directed  by its founding conductor Jane Hopkins. Recent activity includes concerts at St Martin-in-the-fields, East Finchley Arts Festival, overseas tours and recording work.

 

Mar
16
Sat
Concert – Vivaldi: Gloria and Gjeilo: Sunrise Mass @ St Michael's Church
Mar 16 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Voxcetera returns to the beautiful St Michael’s Church with two dazzling works for choir and strings, written nearly 300 years apart.

Vivaldi: Gloria

In a crowded field, little beats this for exuberant Baroque joy. Yet it is full of variety, from the slow and tender “Et in terra pax” to the effervescent “Domine, Fili unigenite”, the choir accompanied throughout by sprightly strings, oboe and trumpet.

Ola Gjeilo: Sunrise Mass

“Most of my favourite composers are film composers working in America today” says the New York-based Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo, and this thrilling mass pays tribute to the emotions, adrenaline and sense of wonder of film music. Scored for choir and strings and using traditional Latin texts, the 30-minute piece is strong on melody and rich in harmony, opening with gorgeous shimmering chords that emerge magically out of silence. It’s unmistakably modern, but it’s also in touch with early sacred music including Gregorian chant.

with:
Voxcetera chamber choir
Jane Hopkins, conductor
Ellie Sperling & Bethany Partridge, soloists
String orchestra, oboe, trumpet, organ

Voxcetera is a chamber choir celebrating sacred and secular music from medieval times to the present day under the direction of its founding conductor Jane Hopkins. The choir’s achievements include its popular Christmas concerts; performances with chamber ensembles of Fauré’s Requiem, Saint-Saëns’ Requiem and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, at St Michael’s Highgate; tours to Germany and Ireland; performances at St Martin-in-the-Fields, St. John Smith Square, St. Stephen Walbrook and East Finchley Arts Festival; appearances at the Science Museum, British Library and the Southbank Centre; and a variety of recording work.