About
In an age of rapid technological growth, do we risk losing ourselves to the tools of advancement? Have we shrunk the world and connected ourselves to everything, only to lose connection to each other? In our hyper-connected yet increasingly isolating world, music must express its power to keep us connected to each other. Join Grammy-nominated American countertenor Reginald Mobley, the virtuoso gambist Julien Léonard and the internationally acclaimed specialist of early plucked instruments Brandon Acker for a deeply moving evening that demonstrates, even in the age of algorithms, that art remains our most powerful tool for human connection.
Building on his 2023 Alpha Classics project, Because, Reginald Mobley’s latest album celebrates music’s power not only to keep us tethered but also its innate power to draw us closer together. Solitude invites audiences into a quiet and intimate place, to pause and unplug from the busy world around us, where emotion, feeling, meaning and imagery created by stories reign unopposed.
Beginning with the incredible invocation of ‘Tis Nature’s Voice, Solitude hopes to draw the ear and open the heart through the genius invention of Henry Purcell, the declamatory charm of Samuel Pepys (through the work of the musicians in his employ) as well as the deep melancholy of John Dowland. This spirit is carried to American shores, where Jonathan Woody and Douglas Balliett explore, through ground bass song, the indomitable resilience contained in the fugitive slave narrative of the brilliant African American Haiku poet Crystal Simone Smith. The programme ends with songs arranged by nineteenth-century Black American guitarist, composer and abolitionist Justin Holland, who, as a spiritual successor to Dowland, leaves us with some of the most beautiful melancholic stories to be created and sung in the 1800s.
