Catherine Underhill & Daniel King Smith

Performers

Notes on the performers

Catherine Underhill

Catherine is a British oboist and cor anglais player. She graduated with a first class BA Honours in Music from University of Southampton and completed her Masters in Oboe Performance at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where she was a Helen Roll Trust and Trinity Laban scholar. She studied with Ruth Bolister, David Thomas and Alan Garner. During her studies, she was a semi-finalist in the Trinity Laban soloists competition and performed with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
Performances have taken Catherine across the UK and to Europe, in concert halls and theatres, including Cadogan Hall and the Mayflower Theatre. She has performed in France, Spain, the Netherlands and with the Berlin Opera
Academy in Switzerland. Catherine has given recitals for the Iris Axon Concert Series, in the Old Royal Naval College Chapel and at Southwark Cathedral. As a soloist, she has performed with the Marcello Oboe Concerto and she is a member of Hacha Duo and Kander Ensemble. Catherine is also co-artistic director of Collective31, UK Contemporary Music and Arts. She enjoys immersing herself in all the arts and collaborating across the art forms.

Daniel King Smith

Daniel King Smith has given concerts all over the world as both soloist and accompanist. He has been broadcast on both BBC TV/Radio in the UK (In Tune, Proms, Young Musician of the Year) and NHK TV/Radio in Japan, most
recently in recital with Yuki Ito as part of NHK’s “Best of Classic” and “Classic Club” series. Daniel has recorded a number of CDs, including releases with Yuki Ito for Sony and with Anna Hashimoto on the Meridian label. As soloist
Daniel’s extensive concerto repertoire has lead to many concerts in the UK and around Europe and he has frequently been a featured Solo Classical Artist on many Cruise lines around the world.

Programme

Programme notes

Marin Marais (1656 – 1728)

Les Folies d’espagne

1. La réveuse
2. L’arabesqu
3. Le badinage
4. Sonnerie de Ste-Genevieve du Mont

A French composer and viol player, he studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe for six months. In 1676 he was hired as a musician to the royal court of Versailles and was moderately successful there, being appointed in 1679 as ordinaire de la chambre du roy pour la viole, a title he kept until 1725.

Source: Wikipedia

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 – 1921)

Sonata for Oboe & Piano (op.166)

1. Andantino in D major
2. Ad libitum – Allegretto – Ad libitum in B flat major
3. Molto allegro in D minor – D major

Camille Saint-Saëns’s Oboe Sonata in D major, Op. 166 was composed in 1921, the year of the composer’s death. This sonata is the first of the three sonatas that Saint-Saëns composed for wind instruments, the other two being the Clarinet Sonata (Op. 167) and the Bassoon Sonata (Op. 168), written the same year. These works were part of Saint-Saëns’s efforts to expand the repertoire for instruments for which hardly any solo parts were written, as he confided to his friend Jean Chantavoine in a letter dated to 15 April 1921: “At the moment I am concentrating my last reserves on giving rarely considered instruments the chance to be heard.” The piece is dedicated to Louis Bas, first solo oboe with the Societé du Conservatoire de l’Opéra.

Source: Wikipedia

Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918)

Rhapsodie for Saxophone and Orchestra, arranged for Cor Anglais and Piano

Around 1895 Debussy received an unusual commission for a new piece. An American patron of the arts, Mrs. Elisa Hall of Boston, played the saxophone-still a relatively new instrument at that time-and was trying to create a repertory for by commissioning new pieces. She commissioned a piece for saxophone and orchestra from Debussy and paid him for it; he promptly spent the money and forgot about the piece. Then, to his astonishment, Mrs. Hall showed up several years later in Paris, asking about her piece. The actual composition of the piece for Mrs. Hall was spread over several years, and it took some time to complete: Debussy appears to have worked on it from 1901 until 1908. At that point, he sent his version for saxophone and piano to her.

Source: Wikipedia

Eugene Bozza (1905 – 1991)

Fantasie Pastorale (op.37)

Born to an Italian father and French mother, the reputation of Eugène Bozza (composer, conductor and professor at the École de musique à Valenciennes) rests largely on his significant contribution to wind chamber music. This substantial body of work demonstrates a melodic fluency, structural elegance and a sensitivity for instrumental capabilities. His single movement Fantaisie Pastorale from 1939 is dedicated to the principal oboist of the Opéra de Paris, Louis Bleuzet, and is a work that fully exploits the instrument’s potential. It begins with an improvisatory cadenza before making way for a lyrical Moderato section which bears some kinship to Debussy. A sparkling closing passage provides the soloist ample opportunity to showcase their virtuosity.

Source: Wikipedia

Charles Colin (1832 – 1881)

Solo de concours (op.33)

Charles Colin was born in Cherbourg, France on June 2, 1826. He entered the Paris Conservatory and won a First Prize in Oboe in 1852 and then studied composition, winning the Second First Grand Prix de Rome in 1857 (Bizet won the First Grand Prix the same year). In 1868, he became the Professor of Oboe at the Paris Conservatory. His series of eight Solos were written for the exams of his class.

Source: Wikipedia