SEIBER CONSORT - CAMBRIDGE GUILDHALL

CAMBRIDGE GUILDHALL
SMALL HALL
MONDAY 19 NOVEMBER 2007 8pm

SONG RECITAL
SEIBER CONSORT

SEIBER SONGS
SACRED & FOLK

PROGRAMME
SEIBER - Hungarian Folk Songs, Yugoslav Folk Songs
Missa Brevis - Nonsense Songs

Seiber studied with Kodaly and was one of a group of students who travelled with him writing down the folk songs which had been handed down only by oral tradition.

He played 'cello in a string quartet on the Amerika - Hamburg line and settled in England in 1935.  He had students from all over the world, including : Don Banks, Ingvar Litholm, Tony Gilbert, Alan Gibbs, Hugh Wood, Ottavio Negro, Francis Oakes, Stanley Glasser, David Lumsdaine - who all came to Caterham for lessons in composition. He re-visited Hungary for the last time in 1956, when he left 3 days before the uprising. He spoke 10 languages fluently and wrote music in a wide range of idioms. He was interested in ancient music and plainchant, he wrote guitar music for Julian Bream, music for the Amadeaus String Quartet and violin pieces dedicated to Tibor Varga & to Max Rostal.  He regarded Schoenberg as perhaps the most interesting of modern music developments, but also sometimes wrote jazz once with Johnny Dankworth, Improvisations for Jazz Band & Orchestra.  He composed music for a number of films - a considerable number of the Halas & Bachelor such as Animal Farm &  Owl & the pussycat but also some full length feature films such as Robbery Under Arms  and   A Town like Alice.  He even was awarded a Novello Prize, getting into the top 20 with the the Fountains of Rome. He married Lilla Bauer, - dancer with the Ballet Jooss (the young girl in the famous production of The Green Table ) - in 1947. 

JAMES EISNER
Born in Sheffield but spent his early years in New Jersey, USA. Later the family moved to Scotland where he studied at St. Andrews University becoming involved in early muisc and classical guitar fraternities.

In the late 1980s he spent time promoting concerts in and around Cambridge. He has sung in numerous groups including: Trecento, Otto Voci, The Cavalli Choir, Queens' College Choir, The Cambridge Taverner Choir & the New Cambridge Singers He paved the way for the now popular Cambridge Early Music Summer Schools and the Cambridge Summer Recitals.

CAMBRIDGE GUILDHALL
The first recorded property on this site belonged to one Benjamin the Jew. This building was granted to the town by Henry III in the 1220's. How it became vacant and what happened to Benjamin is not known, it was well before the official expulsion of the Jews from Cambridge (which was itself some 20 years before they were expelled from the country altogether). Part of it was used as the town gaol, an adjoining synagogue was leased to the Franciscan order.

The Franciscans moved some 50 years later to a purpose built convent on the site of what is now Sidney Sussex College. The vacated premises became the Town Hall, or Tolbooth as it was more commonly known, its principal function being the disposition of tolls for entry into the town and trading at the market. The building was raised on arches with the market stalls below (the present Market Square being largely filled with buildings, which were not cleared until the great fire of 1849). A Shire Hall was built on the open space in front in 1747, again on arches with stalls beneath.

The Shire Hall and the Tolbooth were connected by a wooden bridge over an alley (Butter Row). After new Law Courts were built on Castle Hill in 1842 the Shire Hall and the new Town Hall (built in 1782 on the site of the old one) were amalgamated into a Guildhall.

The current Guildhall was built on the site of these twin buildings in the 1930's. The Cambridge Guildhall is run and operated by the Cambridge City Council. It features two impressive spaces, The Large Hall and The Small Hall.

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