Uploaded November 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Psappha Ensemble:
Benedict Holland - violin
Jennifer Langridge - cello
Tim Williams - cimbalom
Stephen Barlow - conductor
Claire Wild - soprano
In 'Unheard Voices', four composers collaborated with poets whose performing voices reveal diverse spoken accents and varieties of spoken English, to write songs that enable the huge diversity of varieties of English to be heard through the classical singing voice.
This performance was recorded live at Hallé St Peter's in Manchester (UK) on 25th March 2021. To view the 4K version we recommend you use Google Chrome or the Firefox browser. The performance took place during the Covid-19 pandemic and was live-streamed without an audience.
Premiered by Psappha as part of 'Unheard Voices', a project supported by the University of Salford, Arts Council England, and Psappha.
Learn more about Psappha: psappha.com
Film Production
Cameras - Soup Collective
Audio & Mastering - Rob Kelledy
Film produced and edited by Tim Williams
--------
Songs Translated from a Forgotten Language (Words by Ian McMillan / Music by Alan Williams)
'Songs Translated from a Forgotten Language' started out on Twitter. Ian McMillan, a master of pithy and punning tweets began a series of Twitter poems which he called Poems Translated from a Lost Language. I chose a selection of these to be performed (like our previous opera, 'The Arsonists') to be performed in his own South Yorkshire accent. They appear like fragments of a culture we only glimpse, with imagery whose meaning we can only guess at, and with moods varying from earie vague threats to earthy humour. These aphoristic, sometimes surreal poems place Ian’s work firmly in the mainstream of central European avant-garde, and they remind me strongly of poems like János Pilinszky or Anna Akhmatova more commonly set by composers such as Ligeti or Kurtág. Why shouldn’t the north of England express itself in modernist languages? The opportunity to work with Psappha featuring the central European instrument the cimbálom played by Tim Williams was irresistible.
Alan E. Williams
Learn more about Ian McMillan - uktouring.org.uk/ian-mcmillan
Learn more about Alan Williams - alanwilliams123.wordpress.com/about
Psappha Ensemble:
Benedict Holland - violin
Jennifer Langridge - cello
Tim Williams - cimbalom
Stephen Barlow - conductor
Claire Wild - soprano
In 'Unheard Voices', four composers collaborated with poets whose performing voices reveal diverse spoken accents and varieties of spoken English, to write songs that enable the huge diversity of varieties of English to be heard through the classical singing voice.
This performance was recorded live at Hallé St Peter's in Manchester (UK) on 25th March 2021. To view the 4K version we recommend you use Google Chrome or the Firefox browser. The performance took place during the Covid-19 pandemic and was live-streamed without an audience.
Premiered by Psappha as part of 'Unheard Voices', a project supported by the University of Salford, Arts Council England, and Psappha.
Learn more about Psappha: psappha.com
Film Production
Cameras - Soup Collective
Audio & Mastering - Rob Kelledy
Film produced and edited by Tim Williams
--------
Songs Translated from a Forgotten Language (Words by Ian McMillan / Music by Alan Williams)
'Songs Translated from a Forgotten Language' started out on Twitter. Ian McMillan, a master of pithy and punning tweets began a series of Twitter poems which he called Poems Translated from a Lost Language. I chose a selection of these to be performed (like our previous opera, 'The Arsonists') to be performed in his own South Yorkshire accent. They appear like fragments of a culture we only glimpse, with imagery whose meaning we can only guess at, and with moods varying from earie vague threats to earthy humour. These aphoristic, sometimes surreal poems place Ian’s work firmly in the mainstream of central European avant-garde, and they remind me strongly of poems like János Pilinszky or Anna Akhmatova more commonly set by composers such as Ligeti or Kurtág. Why shouldn’t the north of England express itself in modernist languages? The opportunity to work with Psappha featuring the central European instrument the cimbálom played by Tim Williams was irresistible.
Alan E. Williams
Learn more about Ian McMillan - uktouring.org.uk/ian-mcmillan
Learn more about Alan Williams - alanwilliams123.wordpress.com/about
