by Admin | 27 Jul 2024 | events, FRONT PAGE NEWS
We have something a little different for you this month.
British-Canadian soprano Margarita Wood began her music studies in Nova Scotia, where she was raised. She holds a Master’s of Music in Performance and Literature from Western University, and in 2017, completed the International Artist Diploma at the Royal Northern College of Music.
Roles have included Iris (Semele), Gabrielle (La Vie Parisienne), Rodelinda (Rodelinda), Valencienne (The Merry Widow), Cupid (Orpheus in the Underworld), Nella (Gianni Schicchi) and Queen of the Night (The Magic Flute).
Rita has been the recipient of the Dr. Don Wright Scholarship for excellence in music, the Richard Newitt Fund, the Leverhulme Arts Trust and of the Nova Scotia Talent Trust Scholarship. At the RNCM she was awarded the Clare Croiza Prize for French Song.
Scottish tenor Michael Gibson is in his second year as a member of the Jette Parker Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Roles in the coming season include Borsa (Rigoletto), Young Servant (Elektra), Normanno (Lucia di Lamermoor) and Pong (Turandot) in the Royal Opera House’s 2024 tour of Japan.
In the 22/23 season, mainstage roles included Heinrich (Tannhäuser), Pong (Turandot), Gastone (La Traviata) and Ruiz (Il Trovatore) and in the Linbury Theatre, Male Chorus (The Rape of Lucretia) and Varo (Arminio).
Michael and Rita will be accompanied by conductor, pianist, répétiteur and organist Edward Reeve on piano.
Edward joined the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2022/23 Season. Over his two seasons at the Royal Opera House he has worked as assistant conductor on Jephtha, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Turandot and The Rape of Lucretia, and as répétiteur on Don Carlo, Tannhäuser, Das Rheingold, La Bohème, Elektra and Wozzeck. Edward has previously worked at the Bayreuth Festival as Assistant Chorus Master on all their operas featuring chorus, and he has appeared regularly on the Music Staff at Glyndebourne since 2018. Edward was Organ Scholar at Queens’ College, Cambridge, graduating with a Double Starred First in Music in June 2017. He subsequently completed a PhD there in the orchestration of Wagner’s operas as the Aliki Vatikioti Graduate Scholar.
The programme will include works by Quilter, Liszt and Britten.
Pizzas are available as usual. Head over to our box office to reserve your tickets.
by Admin | 22 Jul 2024 | Cricklereaders, Cricklereaders Current, FRONT PAGE NEWS
In August the group is reading Before the Coffee Gets Cold, the million copy selling Japanese cult read.
Deftly written and nimbly translated, Kawaguchi’s life-affirming tale of café-based time travel and symbolic hot beverages has all the hallmarks of a beloved cult classic.
What would you change if you could go back in time?
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a cafe which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.
In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the cafe’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.
But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the cafe, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .
Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story – translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot – explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?
Meet at 1030 in the library to discuss!
by Admin | 15 Jul 2024 | events, FRONT PAGE NEWS |
This will be BJO Quintet’s fifth visit to the library. They were our first jazz band and what a find they were. You’ve loved them ever since and they love playing here, so it’s a win-win.
This time it’s just an instrumental set, so kick back and enjoy these exceptional local musicians.
Tickets over here: https://buytickets.at/thefriendsofcricklewoodlibrary
by Library Admin | 10 Jun 2024 | activities
We’re delighted to welcome The Sonora Quartet to the library. Formed in 2022, Sonora is composed of four second-year RCM instrumentalists, Maria Noskova, Emily St Clair, Maya de Souza and Alex Boyd-Bench. Very enthusiastic and dedicated to chamber music, they have had coaching sessions and masterclasses with members of the Sacconi, Marmen and Pavel Haas Quartets, as well as with Krysia Osotowicz and Susie Mezaros within RCM; in addition, they have received external coaching at MusicWorks Sundays with Ralph de Souza (from the Endellion Quartet) and Catherine Manson and Michael Gurevich (from the London Haydn Quartet). They have performed at the RCM, St Mary Abbots Church and the Austrian Cultural Forum, and have also been lucky enough to have premiered and performed works written for them by fellow RCM composers, including ‘November’ and ‘Away’ by Asher Joyce and ‘Quiberee Bay’ by Rieko Makita. The Sonora Quartet was amongst three RCM quartets selected to play Van Bree’s Allegro for Four Quartets in RCM’s Super String Sunday 2023 alongside the Alkyona Quartet, and is one of three RCM quartets currently on the RCM String Quartet Platform. Recent repertoire includes Haydn Op.17 No.4 in C minor, Mozart K.428 in Eb major, Brahms’ String Quartet No.2 in A minor and Haydn Seven Last Words.
Head over to our booking website to secure your seat.
by Library Admin | 10 Jun 2024 | activities, CrickleUkers, FRONT PAGE NEWS
Due to popular demand, we’re extending the timing of the monthly Ukulele jam, CrickleUkers, by 30 minutes. From Friday 5 July, the sessions will start at 1900, rather than 1930. This will hopefully give all the beginners enough time to get a few chords under their belt before joining the main group in the front of the library.
Also, a reminder that we have about 10 spare ukes to lend out, so no need to buy one before coming along to have a go.
It’s also fine to bring snacks and drinks to share on the night.
Looking forward to seeing more of you there soon.
by Admin | 10 Jun 2024
This is CrickleUkers – our monthly ukulele jam and sing-along.
PLEASE NOTE THE NEW START TIME OF 1900!
Meet at the library for an hour of plucking, strumming, singing and jamming. Experienced volunteers will guide us through the chords towards the production of beautiful tunes. And we’ll have a great old time doing it! If you’re a complete beginner, Brendan is on hand to help with the beginner choirs. We also have a few spare ukes to lend out, so no need to have your own.
We have a few ukuleles on the premises – five soprano and two tenor – but if you have your own, do bring it. There are also some tuners and we’ll provide a few uke tab sheets, but it’s better if you can access the songsheets we’ll be using onto your phone or tablet. We will use the songbook kindly provided by Ukulele Wednesdays (Songbook 4), which you can find here.
Places are limited for fire safety purposes, so please do register. If you can come a few minutes early to help set seats out, and to tidy up afterwards, so much the better – this is a volunteer-led activity and we all have homes to go to…..
by Admin | 10 Jun 2024
Weekly stay and play sessions for babies and toddlers.
For babies and toddlers ages 0-2, stay as long or little as you would like during this Stay and Play. Songs, bubbles, parachute, and a different sensory play each week as well as lots of socialising for both adults and babies. Always £10.00
Book on Babble and Zen Happity or walk in and pay on the day!
by Library Admin | 10 Jun 2024
This year’s Carols by Candlelight will be on Sunday 15 December, 1700-1800. There will be mince pies and mulled wine as usual. Please download the songsheet and bring with you, either on paper (poor trees) or on your smartphone or tablet. If we’re lucky, we’ll be joined by the Cricklesingers who’ll be in fine voice for the evening!
by Library Admin | 9 Jun 2024
We’re thrilled to announce our first proper solo concert. Some devoted fans came to our joint concert at Emmanuel Church in West Hampstead last March, and now we’re back, with some more lovely material and a few more lovely singers!
We’ve been invited to perform by All Saints Child’s Hill, and are delighted to be doing so. The concert will take place from 1930-2100 and entry will be free. the church will provide some refreshments to which contributions are welcome. There may be donations requested on the night – all proceeds from this will go to the church’s “Raise the Roof” fund.
Please share this news widely – we’d love to see as many of you there as possible.
by Library Admin | 6 Jun 2024
The ever popular Brent Jazz Orchestra Quintet return this month for a new set of swing jazz numbers. Not to be missed!
Pizzas are available as usual, but only after you’ve added a ticket to the basket – we’ve had a few people adding only pizzas to their order by accident! Please note tickets go on sale one month before the event.
