A new collaboration sees Leeds Lieder at a cool café/bar with an engaging and beautifully sung programme of songs inspired by folk-music
A former fuel storage tank is not the usual venue for a song recital, but Hyde Park Book Club is no usual venue and last night’s recital there (17 April 2024) by baritone James Newby and pianist Joseph Middleton was a collaboration between Leeds Lieder (of which Middleton is the artistic director) and Through the Noise, the organisation that promotes its concerts, noisenights, via a distinctive crowdfunding model. The recital was all of folk-inspired music, from Matyas Seiber, John Jacob Niles, Thomas Traill, Joseph Suder, Percy Grainger, Vaughan Williams and Britten, plus Ravel’s Cinq Mélodies populaires grecques and Mahler’s Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen.