Those of you who are Friends of St. John's, Smith Square will by now have received the venue's June 2007 brochure from which, by an oversight / accident of fate / call it what you will, it would appear that there will be no concert there on Friday 22 June this year.

T H I S   I S N ' T   T R U E ! !

Those who have already publicised this date elsewhere will be relieved to hear this! (as will a number of others, not least of whom is, of course, the pianist playing on that occasion).

I'm not sure what went wrong at the St. John's end but, whatever it was, I hasten to assure everyone that the concert will still take place, at that venue, on Friday 22 June 2007 at 7.30 p.m. (Deo volente).

Those of you who are not Friends of St. John's, Smith Square will hopefully be interested to know about the event in any case. Concerts like this one don't grow on trees (not even in the hallowed area of Smith Square).

The details are as follows:


A DATE FOR YOUR DIARY...

Jonathan Powell
(piano)

St. John’s, Smith Square, London
Friday 22 June 2007   7.30 p.m.

The Celestial Railroad   Charles Ives
Piano Sonata No. 4, Op. 18   Alistair Hinton
Piano Sonata No. 138   John White
Symphonie (nos. 4-7 from Douze Études dans les Tons Mineurs, Op. 39)   Charles-Valentin Alkan

******
Piano Sonata No. 8, Op. 66   Alexander Skryabin
Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 15   Alistair Hinton
Azulejos   Isaac Albéniz
Schluβszene aus Salome (world première)   Richard Strauss, transc. Kaikhosru Sorabji


We would like to welcome you to St. John’s, Smith Square, London, for this exciting programme by the eminent British pianist Jonathan Powell.

Mr Powell has a long-standing and well-deserved reputation as a performer of some of the most challenging works of contemporary piano literature, including major pieces by British composers such as Finnissy, Ferneyhough and Dillon.  His recital programmes have also featured important works by Russian pianist-composers such as Rakhmaninov, Skryabin, Medtner and Feinberg.

In 2000, he embarked upon an ambitious project to edit, perform and record piano music by Sorabji.  His performances of this repertoire have enthralled audiences in several countries including Britain, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia and America; likewise, his radio broadcasts and CD recordings (on the Altarus label) have elicited universal critical acclaim.

Mr Powell will be giving numerous further performances of Sorabji’s and Hinton’s music in various countries including Germany, Japan, Denmark and UK.

Hinton’s third and fourth piano sonatas both date from 1978.  The third was composed for and premièred by Yonty Solomon in Glasgow; the fourth was first performed in London by Carlo Grante.

Sorabji’s recasting in pianistic terms of the heady final scene from Strauss’s great opera Salome was written in 1947, shortly before Strauss’s death and is the last and arguably finest of his piano transcriptions.

Do please come - and tell your friends about it!  We look forward to seeing you there!


St. John’s, Smith Square, London SW1
General Manager: Paul Davies

Tickets £12, £10, (concessions £8)
from the Box Office, St. John’s, Smith Square, London SW1P 3HA.  Please enclose SAE.  Tel: 020 7 222 1061.  Mastercard, Visa and Maestro accepted.

Advance Booking: The Box Office is open for advance bookings from 10am-5pm (until 6pm on concert days) Monday to Friday.  Advance bookings cannot be made after 6pm or at weekends/bank holidays.

Tickets may also be booked by fax: 0207 233 1618 or online at: www.sjss.org.uk

Booking opens Tuesday 1 May 2007.

The Footstool Restaurant in the Crypt is open from 5.30pm for à la carte dining and a light supper menu.  Tel. 0207 222 2779.

St. John’s, Smith Square Charitable Trust, registered charity no: 1045390.  Registered in England. Company no: 3028678.

Thank you. I have to admit that it's the first time this kind of venue calendar omission thing has ever happened to me and I am somewhat horrified to discover that it is not as uncommon as one would hope to be able to assume.

Best,

Alistair

This missing-publicity problem has happened to me too, Alistair. I presume that the SJSS people will make good on it by putting out an addendum to their listing? I mean, they presumably don't want the audience to consist only of r3ok readers, however high-quality an audience that would be.

I suppose then that this could be the next Board Meeting.

All that they are prepared to do (since they are adamant about having no record of our application for the concert which we emailed to them on 15 March) is include a flyer about it with their July brochure which mails out around 15 May, but we will have to created it ourselves (which we've done) and pay the costs of its inclusion (which amount we have yet to be advised); the other thing that we have just managed, by the skin of our teeth, to do is get them to add a "Stop Press" in that July brochure (which is already at the printers) - it'll only be a block of about 2.5mm and will be at the back of the brochure, but it's better than nothing, I suppose (and they are not charging us extra for that, mercifully).

While thanking you for your kind concern here, I must gently take issue with your suggestion that the SJSS administrators "presumably don't want the audience to consist only of r3ok readers, however high-quality an audience that would be"; given that such an audience would indeed be of an inestimably high quality (and given also that the SJSS administrators will be taking a hefty commission on ticket sales to all the bums that connect with seats on that evening, regardless of bum quality), I'm sure that this would not be an issue even if it were to be the case!

Best,

Alistair

It has indeed been sent to them, but thanks for the reminder anyway! "We" look forward to greeting large numbers of estimable bums. (I really never thought that I'd say such a thing about this concert - or indeed anything else, come to that...)

Best,

Alistair

Hope your move is not working out too stressful, Richard - are you likely to be free for the smoke-out pub/Indian trip next Friday?

this was a marvellous event! i went with a friend who had never been to a classical concert before and it was quite telling that he was swept away by the whole thing.pity attendance was on the low side,maybe because of the publicity cock -up at st.johns?

It was an excellent concert - well done and thank you to Jonathan, and also to Alistair - sorry I didn't get to meet you except for a very brief hello from the other end of a rather cramped Pizza Express table! Another time, maybe?