Pre- Concert Talk: Tickets are FREE. If you book for the concert, your pre-concert ticket can be added to your basket. Tickets will also be available on the door.
Concert: Tickets from £15
Students £5
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Linking in with this year’s Kafka centenary celebrations in Oxford, Kaleidoscope’s richly expressive programme explores themes of metamorphosis and transformation through two of the most thrilling chamber works in the repertoire.
Francesca Chiejina (soprano), Elena Urioste (violin), Savitri Grier (violin), Juan-Miguel Hernandez (viola), Edgar Francis (viola), Laura van der Heijden (cello), Tony Rymer (cello), Philip Nelson (Double Bass)
Alexander Zemlinsky – Maiblumen blühten überall for soprano and string sextet Richard Strauss – Metamorphosen (arr. Rudolf Leopold for string septet)
INTERVAL Alma Mahler – Four Songs (arr. Tom Poster for soprano and string sextet) Arnold Schoenberg – Verklärte Nacht for string sextet, Op. 4 Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht is an impassioned depiction of a couple whose lives are transfigured as they walk through the night, while Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen (in its string septet version) is a heart-rending reaction against the destruction of European culture and heritage in the Second World War.
Fast-rising star soprano Francesca Chiejina joins for some exquisite music for voice and strings: Zemlinsky conjures shimmering textures in Maiblumen blühten überall, while four of Alma Mahler’s songs are heard here in sumptuous chamber arrangements by Tom Poster.
This is an evening of emotional extremes, of feverish and ecstatic passions; we can’t wait to share the journey with you.
PRE CONCERT TALK
Join us from 6pm – 6.45pm for a FREE pre-concert talk ‘Kafka and Music’ with Carolin Duttlinger. You will be offered the option to add a ticket to your basket when you purchase your ticket for ‘Transfigured’. Tickets for the talk will also be available on the door
Carolin is Professor of German at the University of Oxford and Co-Director of the Oxford Kafka Research Centre. An international Kafka expert, she has published four books on the author. She is currently leading a major new research project, ‘Kafka’s Transformative Communities’, which is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and which brings together academics and creative practitioners from a range of artforms and media.
Plan your visit
Sheldonian Theatre, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3AZ
The Sheldonian Theatre is located in Oxford city centre on Broad Street, OX1 3AZ. It is approximately a 10-minute walk from Gloucester Green bus station and a 15-minute walk from Oxford railway station
Nigerian-American soprano Francesca Chiejina is a graduate of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where her roles included Countess Ceprano Rigoletto, Lady-in-Waiting Macbeth, Voice from Heaven Don Carlo, and Ines Il trovatore.
This season, Francesca sings the title role in Semele (Blackheath Halls) and performs Strauss Lieder with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Opera North. She will premiere Odyssey, a new work by Jonathan Dove and will headline the CBSO’s ‘Viennese New Year’ concert.
Recent operatic highlights include High Priestess Aida at Royal Opera House and Lauretta Il Trittico with Scottish Opera; Mimì La bohème (Nevill Holt Opera, English Touring Opera); Melissa Amadigi(English Touring Opera); Miss Jessel The Turn of the Screw (OperaGlass Works); the title role in English Touring Opera’s film of Elena Langer and Glyn Maxwell’s Ariadne; Freia RhineGold (Birmingham Opera Company); Anne Trulove The Rake’s Progress(Blackheath Halls Opera); her debut with Capella Cracoviensis as Aldimira Sigismondo;her house and role debut as Clara Porgy and Bess at Grange Park Opera; her debut with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (Serena Porgy and Bess).
On the concert platform, she has recently sung Berg’s Seven Early Songs with the Sinfonia of London and John Wilson at the BBC Proms, Mozart’s Requiemwith Crouch End Festival Chorus, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the BBC Philharmonic and with the Royal Northern Sinfonia at the Sage Gateshead; Handel’s Messiah with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall; Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music at the Last Night of the Proms.
Chiejina has participated in masterclasses with Martin Katz, Kamal Khan, Gianna Rolandi, Joyce DiDonato, Brigitte Fassbänder, Edith Wiens and Felicity Lott. Competition successes include reaching the finals of the inaugural Glyndebourne Opera Cup in 2018, the semi-finals in the National Mozart Competition and winning the GSMD English Song Prize, the GSMD Aria Prize, as well as second prize in the Classical Singer Competition. She was also a finalist in the 2017 Kathleen Ferrier Awards.
Chiejina studied at the University of Michigan with Martha Sheil and James Paterson, and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Sue McCulloch.
Professor of German at the University of Oxford and Co-Director of the Oxford Kafka Research Centre
CAROLIN DUTTLINGER
Professor of German at the University of Oxford and Co-Director of the Oxford Kafka Research Centre
Carolin Duttlinger is Professor of German at the University of Oxford and Co-Director of the Oxford Kafka Research Centre. An international Kafka expert, she has published four books on the author. She is currently leading a major new research project, ‘Kafka’s Transformative Communities’, which is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and which brings together academics and creative practitioners from a range of artforms and media.
Hailed for its “exhilarating performances” (The Times), was dreamed up in 2017 by Tom Poster and Elena Urioste, who met through the BBC New Generation Artists Scheme. Kaleidoscope’s flexible roster features many of today’s most inspirational musicians, both instrumentalists and singers, and its creative programming is marked by an ardent commitment to celebrating diversity of all forms and a desire to unearth lesser-known gems of the repertoire.
In 2020, Kaleidoscope was appointed Associate Ensemble at Wigmore Hall, where the group makes multiple appearances each season, and was invited to give the Hall’s 120th birthday concert in May 2021. Kaleidoscope broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3 and has recently been ensemble-in-residence at Aldeburgh Festival, Kettle’s Yard, Ischia Music Festival, Chamber Music by the Sea (Maryland USA), and Cheltenham Festival, where the group gave several world premieres and collaborated with Sir Simon Russell Beale and the cast of The Lehman Trilogy.
Kaleidoscope’s debut recording for Chandos Records, American Quintets, received glowing reviews and a BBC Music Magazine Award nomination, and immediately led to an invitation to record a series of albums for the label. A subsequent album of Coleridge-Taylor chamber works was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award, and a Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn disc was included in The Times ’10 best classical records of 2022’. The most recent album, Transfigured, featuring music of Alma Mahler, Schoenberg, Webern and Zemlinsky, was released in September 2023, with a three-disc series of the piano quartets of Brahms and his female contemporaries to follow.
Passionate about inspiring the next generation of musicians, Kaleidoscope has featured in Wigmore Hall’s Learning Festival, directed courses for the Benedetti Foundation, and held a visiting professorship at the Royal Academy of Music for the 2022-23 academic year. Recent and forthcoming performance highlights include concerts in London and Dortmund with Hilary Hahn, a debut at the BBC Proms, and two extensive tours of the USA. In 2024, Kaleidoscope was shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society Ensemble Award.
For more information, please visit www.kaleidoscopecc.com, where you can also find links to the individual musicians’ websites.
