This event finished on: 29 March 2012
Shuffle It Right features private recordings made by the American songwriter Hoagy Carmichael, who himself sings, whistles and plays piano on them. The songs Richard Alston has chosen – including Riverboat Shuffle, Ol’ Man Harlem and, of course, Star Dust – scurry along with wry little licks and punched out syncopated rhythms.
Also on the programme is Alston’s recent Unfinished Business, danced to the beautiful, lucid and flowing music of Mozart – the two movements of an unfinished piano sonata, Opus K533, played live by Jason Ridgway. To these, Alston has added an extraordinary arrangement of Mozart’s brilliant Gigue in D by the Italian virtuoso Federico Busoni, creating a third movement and bringing things to a rousing close.
The evening’s triple bill is completed by Alston’s latest work, A Ceremony of Carols, choreographed to Benjamin Britten’s masterpiece for boys’ voices and harp. The music is of magisterial simplicity, conjuring up a rich world of rapt, devout adoration; the dance is a celebration of a sheer surge of breath, a pure stream of sound.
A Ceremony of Carols was co-commissioned by The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, Sadler’s Wells and Peak Performance @ Montclair State (NJ).
Visit:
Exeter Northcott Theatre
Stocker Road
Exeter
EX4 4QB
Box Office: 01392 493493
http://www.exeternorthcott.co.uk/