TKC has just returned from a triumphant French tour. Unusually, the tour rehearsed abroad, with soloists Lorna Anderson and Iestyn Davies, conductor Robert King and TKC’s typically international orchestra – including performers from nine nations – hosted at the French château of TKC soloist David Wilson-Johnson. Rehearsing Vivaldi motets and concerti, Michael Berkeley’s TKC commission Touch Light and Pergolesi Stabat Mater in the brand new Atelier de Musique attached to Ferrandou, members of the orchestra were able to be in the pool within 30 seconds of a rehearsal ending. The gastronomy was equally spectacular. This did not feel like the usual tough European tour!
The first concert took place in the historic local church of Tauriac, where a wildly enthusiastic audience from across the region filled every seat, then stood in the aisles and, when those spaces too were over-filled, sat outside the door and listened by moonlight. The tour then moved onto Le Puy, with another sell-out concert, this time for the well-known festival of La Chaise-Dieu, and then travelled further north, to the historic cathedral of Alençon for the festival Septembre Musicale de l’Orne. Again, every seat was sold. A deft combination of fast trains enabled the orchestra to return to
Plans are already afoot to widen David Wilson-Johnson’s highly regarded summer school at Ferrandou to include TKC, both teaching and concert-giving. Watch this space for 2012…
