Out today! Vol. 3 Dodgson solo songs 'Turn Ye to Me'. Ailish Tynan, Katie Bray, James Gilchrist, Roderick Williams, Mark Eden & Christopher Glynn. Lyrical, yearning, playful and gritty!
'Dark, funny, gritty, charming and witty, profound, accessible and beautiful.' After a fantastic couple of days recording Dodgson's Bassoon Concerto, Clarinet Concerto, Symphony in Eb and Idyll for strings, the Outcry Ensemble share their perspectives on Dodgson's music.
Dodgson's Mary Coleridge poems were warmly beguiling with an underlying seam of something rather more fretful and unsettled, a quality that Dodgson achieved so brilliantly. A lovely evening with a gently warm and buzzing atmosphere, and Sonoro were on excellent form – full of richness and versatility.
‘A vibrant, dramatic and playful approach to a contemporary text.’
‘It’s funky and it’s poetic, and it’s very evocative of a hot summer’s day.’
‘An enigmatic and interesting composer, and one I would like to explore some more.’
‘It’s a very surprising and very engaging piece, and very unusual. It’s a privilege to perform it and I hope that’s how our audience will feel when they hear it as well.’
----------------------------
Vivamus share their experience of singing Stephen Dodgson's Canticle of the Sun.
Student violinist Kangmin Kim reflects on contrasting works by Holst and Dodgson, performed at the opening concert of the Barnes Music Festival. Two composers from Barnes, yet two strikingly contrasting approaches to writing for strings. On the opening night of the Barnes Music Festival 2025 (15th March), the theme of music and literature was explored through a programme made up of music by Dodgson, Britten, Mozart and Holst. Performed by the Academy of St Martin’s in the Fields, the concert opened with a contemporary and abstract showcase of Stephen Dodgson’s Essay No. 7, contrasted with the final work – an […]
In the opening-night Barnes Music Festival concert, ASMF brought wonderful rich, crisp textures to their performance. And players and audience responded warmly and thoughtfully to Stephen Dodgson's atmospheric Essay No. 7, gently full of different full of different personalities: major-minor cross-modalities, rhythmic interest and constantly shifting cross-rhythms, interwoven with more nebulous parts that are almost ‘kaleidoscopically coming into and out of focus'.
To discuss music with Stephen Dodgson was to follow an incomparably rich trail of knowledge and ideas. And many memories of him have been rekindled by reading this excellent book. It is beautifully produced and reasonably priced. It is a worthy celebration of its subject, a fine composer and erudite musician who was also a thoroughly nice man.
The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music opens on Friday 8th May with ‘Arise, My Darling’, a concert from stellar London chamber choir Pegasus. The evening explores a range of sacred works by modern composers and includes Stephen Dodgson’s ‘Dormi Jesu’. This beautiful simple soprano-alto-tenor miniature mixes medieval harmonies with hint of modernism to produce an exquisite vision of the Virgin Mary nurturing the young Christ child.