Ravel Alborado del Gracioso
Ravel (arr. Grainger) La vallée des cloches
Chausson Poeme de l’amour et de la mer – Catherine Hopper mezzo soprano
John Adams Harmonielehre

Saturday 19 March 2016, 7.30pm
Hammersmith Town Hall, London W6 9JU

Tickets: £12, £8 concessions (school-aged children and unwaged)

About this concert

Imagine a supertanker suddenly powered by rockets and launching itself from the sea, past San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and into space. This vision inspired the American composer John Adams to write the pounding, hair-raising opening of his orchestral piece Harmonielehre (The Study of Harmony) which Fulham Symphony Orchestra plays in its March concert. The piece is a sensuous dreamscape, the gorgeous surface of American minimalism meeting the lush late-Romantic world of Mahler and Sibelius and concluding raucously with what Adams calls a “bull run in E flat major”. We welcome fast-rising mezzo soprano Catherine Hopper to sing Ernst Chausson’s painfully beautiful meditation on love’s transience, the Poëme de l’Amour et de la Mer (Poem of Love and the Sea), and round off our programme with two short orchestral showpieces by Maurice Ravel. It’s thrilling music and you won’t have a chance to hear any of it elsewhere in the UK this year.

Catherine Hopper studied Music at the University of Leeds and the Franz Liszt Hochschule in Weimar, Germany graduating with a BMus Hons. She subsequently graduated from Royal Academy Opera with a distinction and the Vice Principals prize, before completing her studies at the National Opera Studio.

Recent highlights include the role of Suzuki in the revival of David Freeman’s production of Madam Butterfly at the Royal Albert Hall, Ottavia/L’Incoronazione di Poppea for opera North, Dido at the Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon with Os músicos do Tejo. a tour of Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in performances of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio as well as  performances with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the King’s Consort.

In the summer 2015 she sang the roles of Mum/Mad Hatter in the revival of Will Todd’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for Opera Holland Park.

Main photo: Oakland Bay Bridge by ChristianSchd