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Crispin Lewis & Raymond Lewis
5 September @ 12:45 pm – 1:45 pm
Tickets on the door (cash or card). Under 18s and carers go free
Doors open at 12:15 pm
Notes on the performers
Singer and conductor Crispin Lewis studied at the Royal College of Music (postgraduate) and at Trinity Laban Conservatoire (undergraduate). He has directed his own vocal ensembles many times, including at Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square, Hall One at Kings Place, the Royal Opera House, Linbury Theatre, the South Bank Centre, and in many BBC Radio 3 broadcasts. He also directs two choral societies. Crispin has performed opera roles including Salieri in Rimsky Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri; King Rene in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta; Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte; Figaro in Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro, and Leporello in Don Giovanni. He gives solo vocal recitals regularly and is the soloist for many choral societies. He is also the director of Choritalia, a summer school in Tuscany for choral singers. Crispin has been a member of the professional vocal quartet at the church of St Giles-in-the-Fields, London since 2016, and has sung at all of the major English Cathedrals. His new album of the songs of Herbert Murrill, with Raymond Lewis and Rachel Broadbent, will be released in September by First Hand Records.
Raymond Lewis has performed on London’s South Bank as solo pianist, in chamber music, as continuo player, and as conductor. As pianist, his duo partners have included the violinist, Ralph Holmes, Alexander Boyarsky (sometime principal cellist of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra) and Pablo Casals protégé, Rohan de Saram. As organist he has played at most of the major cathedrals in the UK, and given solo recitals in Chichester Cathedral, the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban, Rochester Cathedral, Central Hall Westminster, and on numerous occasions at Southwark Cathedral and St David’s Cathedral. As a composer his compositions have been performed at the Barbican Centre, The Royal Festival Hall, St Alban’s Abbey, and Liverpool Cathedral.
Programme
Programme notes
Herbert Murrill
In Youth Is Pleasure
Piggësnye
I Loved A Lass
Love Is A Sickness
Phillada Flouts Me
Roister Doister
From ‘Sonatina For Pianoforte’: Arioso
Sleep
The Bachelor
A Thanksgiving to God
Self-Portrait
- Of Self: Portrait of the Artist
- Of Birth: A Song for Lovers
- Of Death: Suburban Funerals
Trois Poèmes
- Chanson
- Chanson Petite
- Le Bonbon
The Songs of Herbert Murrill
Herbert Murrill is probably best known for his wonderful Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in E, which is performed pretty much every other week in an Anglican church somewhere in the world.
His story is a fascinating one. In his short life of 43 years, he became the Royal Academy of Music’s youngest ever professor of composition at the age of 24. He joined the staff of the BBC in 1936, where eventually he became Head of Music. During the second-world-war he was a code-breaker at Bletchley Park, directing the choir, organising chamber music and directing opera there, bringing in many world-renowned musicians to perform there, whilst also working on Japanese codes and ciphers.
None of Murrill’s solo voice songs have been recorded, and many are unpublished and exist only in manuscript whilst others have fallen out of print. Some may not have been heard in more than 70 years. Following research and the discovery of his song manuscripts in the BBC archives, later in September 2024 we will release a new commercial album of Herbert Murrill’s complete extant songs for the record label First Hand Records.
This is an opportunity to hear a selection of his songs, ahead of the launch of the new album.