Kirsty Whatley

This project developed and ran as a series of concerts in 2019.

With Katharine Hawnt, voice, and S.K. Twiselton, composer.

Concert outline:

‘Songs of Albion is a concert programme that draws on themes of humanity and nostalgia, in music by composers who felt a kinship with the past. Vaughan Williams, Rebecca Clarke, Britten, Tippett and Purcell looked yearningly to bygone times in their search for voices that resonated with their own troubled era, often blending classical and folk traditions. These sit alongside a new song cycle by S.K. Twiselton, rekindling the voices of six girls from times past. Old British folksongs tell of musicians, murder, love and war, while ancient runes sound again in settings by Warlock and Rubbra. This is music from our sceptered isles: lands of magic and melancholy, opulence and opression, tea and biscuits.’

The programme unfolds through the following chapters:

Preparing for guests - Albion - Britons at war - Women’s work - Sing softly at twilight - Parting - Interlude in Erin - Of all that is green and pleasant

“An exquisite performance… so very beautiful… a wonderful oasis… I felt so inspired, I have gone away with a song in my heart.” (S.H.)

a stitch in time, by S.K Twiselton.

The full concert, Songs of Albion, grew from one piece that Kate and I felt a very strong connection with - ‘a stitch in time’, by S.K Twiselton. It uses texts from embroidery samplers done by girls from across the social strata, from the 18th and 19th centuries. Each song in the cycle has its own distinctive character, and each is “signed and dated” by the girl in question (the youngest only 10 years old). We warmed to the intimacy and inventiveness of the songs, the range of emotions that play out across the cycle, the girls themselves as they emerge through words and music, and the juxtaposition of old and new. It was an absolute delight to premiere this piece in summer 2019.

The six songs of ‘a stitch in time’ are:

1. Martha Litchfield. 2. My father he is dead and gone. 3. My Dearest Aunt. 4. Two things. 5. Behold the daughter of Innocence. 6. Elizabeth Clements.

Katharine Hawnt

Katharine Hawnt was a choral scholar under the late David Trendell at King’s College London and then trained at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland. She has performed throughout Europe as a soloist and choral member with Collegium Vocale Ghent, Musica Secreta, Ensemble Plus Ultra, Al Ayre Español, and Nuove Musiche, among others.  She has appeared in many recordings, broadcasts and festivals in the UK and abroad, in particular the Brighton Early Music Festival where she appears most years.  Her voice was featured in a BBC Radio 4 dramatization of Sarah Dunant’s novel, Sacred Hearts and Katharine has made regular appearances as the character Serafina in a production that toured the country.  With the ensemble A Garden of Eloquence, Katharine released her first solo CD in 2011, Songs to Mistress Anne Greene, receiving rave reviews worldwide.  A recent recording with Musica Secreta, entitled ‘Lucrezia Borgia’s Daughter’ was released in 2017 to great acclaim and their latest, ‘From Darkness into Light’, released in Autumn 2019, has been similarly well received in the press and amongst broadcasters.  Recent engagements have include performances at Dartington International Summer School, Acton Court and in Sweden with ensemble In Echo, and King’s Place with Musica Secreta.  She co-directs Le Basile, an ensemble specialising in late-medieval and renaissance repertoire, with her husband Uri Smilansky.  Katharine is also an academic researcher and holds a doctorate from the University of Southampton.