A New Song

• Barber Lunchtime Concert

A New Song

Marta Fontanals-Simmons mezzo soprano
Christopher Glynn piano

Conjure up everyday magic with words by master poet Michael Donaghy in the Midlands premiere of acclaimed Scottish composer Martin Suckling’s The Tuning, performed by University of Birmingham alumna and rising-star mezzo soprano Marta Fontanals-Simmons and pianist Christopher Glynn.

Brahms Acht Zigeunerlieder, Op. 103
Debussy Trois Chanson de Bilitis
Turina Poema en forma de canciones
Martin Suckling The Tuning

This concert is presented in a new partnership with Oxford Lieder. Marta Fontanals-Simmons is an alumnus of the University of Birmingham: she made her debut at the Royal Opera House in last season’s Faust, and has just finished a run of Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus at English National Opera. 

 She and Christopher Glynn premiered Martin Suckling’s The Tuning, commissioned by Oxford Lieder, at this year’s Oxford Lieder Festival. They couple this with Debussy’s colourful settings of Pierre Louÿs’s erotically charged poetry, a beautiful cycle by the Spanish composer Joaquín Turina, and the heart-on-sleeve passion of Brahms’s ‘Gypsy Songs’.

Admission: Free