Sunday 24th March 2013
Rosanna Ter-Berg — Flute
Leo Nicholson — Piano
Rosanna has performed at some of the UK’s most prestigious concert halls and is a 2012 Making Music Young Concert Artist award winner. She studied at Trinity Laban, Leeds University and Strasbourg Conservatoire. She is collaborating with a number of composers who have been inspired to write for her including Thomas Oehler, Andrew Gorman and Laura Harrison. Leo studied at the Purcell, the Junior Royal Northern College of Music, and with Douglas Finch and the late Yonty Solomon at Trinity Laban.
Review by Terry Keeler
Rosanna Ter-Berg (Flute) and Leo Nicholson (Piano)
Templewood, Northrepps 24th March 2013
On a bitterly cold day many people came to listen to quality performances by Rosanna Ter-Berg and Leo Nicholson, playing music by Frank Martin, William Alwyn, Copeland, Poulenc, Debussy, Taktakishvili and Mike Mower.
Both artists have performed at many prestigious concert halls throughout the UK. Ter-Berg will be performing with the London Sinfonietta at the Proms this summer.
Leo Nicholson is a much sought after accompanist and is currently at Trinity as a faculty member working with singers and wind players.
The opening piece of the concert Ballade by Frank Martin, a prolific Swiss composer/pianist whose wife died whilst he was writing this piece, explained the deep emotion portrayed in the music, which was performed with intense and almost tangible sensitivity and respect for the composer’s intention.
After the interval, Debussy’s Six Epigraphes Antiques which he wrote to accompany spoken poems written by a friend- these were just six short works of the 12 originally written.
The highlight for me, of this concert, being Mike Mower’s Scree, from Sonata No 3. This intense and exciting work, I am sure, aroused all present, who had probably been lulled into a peaceful dimension by the soothing and sometimes haunting sounds of the flute. Here Mower’s composition in performance confirmed the extreme capabilities of the two artists who performed this most demanding work involving a truly modern progressive jazz idiom, in style, with its demands on the performers was met with relish and ease.
On leaving Templewood I hope classical purists were prompted to reflect on their preferences after experiencing the writings of Mike Mower!
Terry Keeler
16 Norwich Road, Cromer
Tel 01263 513273