Brodsky Quartet, Loré Lixenberg Mezzo-Soprano, Cathal Breslin Piano/Hammond, Elgar, Osborne & others (including Verbey)

Trees, Walls and Cities is a newly commissioned song-cycle which links the ‘walled’ cities of Derry, London, Utrecht, Berlin, Vienna, Dubrovnik, Nicosia and Jerusalem. Each song is created by a local composer working with either an existing text or, more often, with a neighboring poet. The songs reach symbolically across the walls which divide people; the tree featured in each case represents peace, wisdom and life itself. Nigel Osborne’s music frames the cycle and links the chain of cities. Christopher Norby’s ‘Once There Was An Island’, to a text by Matt Jennings, opens the song-cycle. Dutch composer Theo Verbey has contributed ‘In the Garden of Paracelsus’ based on a poem by Peter Huchel. This is Verbey’s second commission for the Brodsky Quartet. Other works for the cycle will be contributed by Jocelyn Pook, Søren Nils Eichberg, Gerald Resch, Isidora Zebeljan, Yannis Kyriakides and Habib Shehadeh Hanna.

Verbey: In the Garden of Paracelsus
Artist: Lore Lixenberg (Mezzo Soprano)
Ensemble: Brodsky Quartet

Elgar: Quintet for Piano and Strings in A minor, Op. 84
Artist: Cathal Breslin (Piano)
Ensemble: Brodsky Quartet