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Sounds of Place: Listening Geographically to Nordic and British Art Song

03 May 2024, 1:00 pm–2:15 pm

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How does music interpret place? Don't miss this conversation-recital exploring the sounds of Nordic and British art songs in different sites and settings

This event is free.

Event Information

Open to

All

Availability

Yes

Cost

Free

Organiser

Annika Lindskog

Location

Haldane Room, Wilkins Building
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT
United Kingdom

About the event

How does music interpret place? How does it ’sound out’ places, sites and geographical locations? And how does it in turn contribute to creating meaning of those places?

This conversation-recital aims to explore place-relatedness in a selection of British and Nordic art songs, reflecting on the ways music connects with and relates to places as both concrete realities and culturally meaningful sites, and probe how certain music negotiates sites and locations to both express and shape meaning of those places.

The event will listen to a curated selection of songs by among others Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Ina Boyle, Wilhelm Stenhammar and Percy Grainger, and in conversations explore how they engage in and express site-relatedness. Soprano Harriet Burns and pianist Ian Tindale are returning to UCL after a highly acclaimed previous event in June 2022, and are this time joined by former Radio 3 New Generation Artist tenor Alessandro Fisher. The reflections will take the form of discussions between Dr Stewart Campbell, lecturer in Music, Management and Marketing from York University with a particular interest in audience reception and song, and Annika Lindskog, lecturer in Scandinavian Studies and cultural history at SELCS (UCL), and a language coach for Scandinavian vocal repertoire.

sound is a crucial element in the world we construct for ourselves, and the world that others construct and impose on us (Connell & Gibson, 2003)

Please register in advance, and feel free to bring your lunch sandwich.

The event is free and part of Music Futures, the initiative dedicated to thinking, writing and performing music, jointly hosted by the UCL European Institute and the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, with support from UCL Grand Challenges. For further details, see the Music Futurers website here.

About the Speakers

Harriet Burns

Soprano

Harriet Burns
British soprano Harriet Burns is fast developing a reputation as a “polished, witty, expressive and sweet-toned” (The Times) performer both in recital and on stage. With her regular duo-partner, Ian Tindale, she released an album of Schubert Lieder  Love's Lasting Power to critical acclaim with Delphian Records in January 2024. On the operatic stage, recent roles include King Harald's Saga (Judith Weir) for Waterperry Opera, Sifare (cover, Mitridate, re di Ponto, Mozart) and Oriana (cover, Amadigi, Handel) for Garsington Opera. 2023/2024 season highlights include Handel Messiah with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Thea Musgrave Songs for a Winter's Evening with the Southbank Sinfonia and Gabriella Teychenné, and recitals at the Wigmore Hall with Graham Johnson.

Alessandro Fisher

Tenor

Alessandro is a holder of a 2022 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, selected by Gramophone as “One to watch”, Winner of First Prize at the 2016 Kathleen Ferrier Awards and a Associate Artist of The Mozartists, as well as a member of the BBC New Generation Artist Scheme between 2018 and 2021. He read Modern and Mediaval Languages at Cambridge, where he was Choral Scholar at Clare College, then studied at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 2024 he released his first solo CD, featuring music by Ian Venables and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Ian Tindale

Pianist

Ian Tindale
British pianist Ian Tindale is increasingly in demand in song and chamber music and has performed across London, the UK and Europe. Ian graduated from the Royal College of Music (RCM) with distinction in 2013, and is a Britten Pears Young Artist and a Samling Artist. In 2017 Ian was awarded the Pianist’s Prize in the Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation Song Competition following performances with duo partner soprano Harriet Burns, and in 2023 they released their first collaborative CD of Schubert songs. Ian is also Founder and Artistic Director of Shipston Song, a new song festival on the edge of the Cotswolds. 

Dr Stewart Campbell

Lecturer in Music, Management and Marketing at York University

Stuart Campbell
Stewart has over 15 years of experience in the music and cultural industries. Stewart’s teaching and research interests explore the areas of music management theory and practice, music organisation studies and theory, and live music audiences and musical reception. Stewart has a particular interest in art forms that combine music and text, and his ongoing research project ‘Complex Interpretative Song Worlds’ focuses on the performance, production, and reception of classical song. Stewart also works as a professional singer, and has performed regularly with a number of cathedral choirs across the UK, including currently with the Choir of York Minster.


 

Annika Lindskog

Lecturer in Swedish and Scandinavian Studies at UCL

Annika Lindskog
Annika Lindskog is Lecturer in Swedish and Scandinavian Studies in the Department of Scandinavian Studies (SELCS) at UCL, where she teaches language, cultural studies and cultural history in the Nordic region and beyond. She has published on a variety of topics including landscape ideology, collective identity, and representations of north, in particular focussing on classical music as a cultural expression in dialogue with its context. She is also a classically trained singer and a professional language coach in Swedish for singers and choirs in the UK (e.g the BBC Singers, The Carice Singers, the BBC Symphony Chorus).