Music type Archives - Turner Sims

N’famady Kouyaté – Balafô Douma

One of my favourites from the playlist, N’famady Kouyaté’s earworm Balafô Douma seamlessly incorporates both Mandingue African and funk music. The combination of the balafon – a traditional wooden xylophone that Kouyaté’s plays, and horns creates an interesting blend of sounds. The improv sections in this track are particularly enjoyable, with the interwoven saxophone and trumpet melodies mashing well together, and the beginning of the guitar solo being particularly satisfying.

Angeline Morrison – Go Home

‘Of all The Sorrow Songs, this is the only one that is not specifically rooted in a particular time, place or individual’s story. This song is for all the people who have ever been made to feel unwelcome in the place they have chosen to call home.’ Angeline Morrison

The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs of Black British Experience is an amazing album that turns the (previously) unsung stories of black ancestors living in the UK into traditional folk songs. Angeline Morrison’s deeply beautiful voice combined with the melancholic, brooding tone of this song portrays both past and current experiences of prejudice.

The Rheingans Sisters – The Yellow of the Flowers

For a happier and more uplifting folk tune, The Yellow of the Flowers by The Rheingans Sisters is a good pick. It opens with a beautiful fiddle melody and progress to uplifting vocals. This song has a warm, reminiscent and nostalgic quality with mentions of school and childhood in the lyrics. Hearing this gorgeous folk music makes me excited to hear the sisters’ 5th studio album!

Welsh National Opera Orchestra – Josef Strauss Delirien (Delirium) Waltz

With an opening full of dramatic suspense that turns to a lighter mood once the waltz is introduced, Strauss’ Delirien Waltz will bring excitement to the new year with Welsh National Opera’s Performance of this stunning piece. My favourite moment is the playful yet graceful flute solo towards the beginning that segues perfectly into a grandiose tutti orchestra.

Sara Lock Head of Arts Marketing and Communication, University of Southampton

My pick for Spring 2024 is Maya Youssef. Her album Finding Home is full of heart and beautiful melodies. From the lively Jasmin Bayati to the mellow and heartfelt sound of My Homeland, it’s an eclectic and moving album. I love the idea of finding home in music and can’t wait to hear her perform live in the beautiful acoustic of Turner Sims. Jasdeep Singh Degun’s performance at Turner Sims was a standout for me. I bought his album on the night and every time I listen to it, I play the final track, Redemption (reprise), at least twice. It has fast become one of my favourite pieces of music. It makes me want to turn the volume up, close my eyes and really listen.

Val Drayton Head of Operations

My staff pick is corto.alto, the current project of Liam Shortall There’s such a buzz around the Glasgow nu-jazz scene with lots of cross-pollination between individual sub-scenes creating exciting new sounds. Scottish music is surprisingly very diverse, with a Scottish folk influence on improvised music but also loads of other types of ‘jazz’ emerging, from hip-hop, soul, electronic, latin, funk, punk, heavy jazz etc. You can tell that everyone is having a lot of fun! As Liam says ‘Everyone that knows about the Glasgow music scene, knows.’ I really enjoyed Saltlines last year, a wonderful blending of folk and spoken word from Gigspanner Big Band performing with Raynor Winn. Stunning multi-instrumentalists, beautiful words and music weaving together to create a very special night.

What’s the Festival about?
When is a G-sharp not a G-sharp? When it’s an A-flat!

Sharps and flats have to share the black keys on the piano keyboard, but they are actually different notes. Over the years, that dilemma has led to many different ways of tuning pianos. The compromise we use now, called equal temperament, was not established until after the time of Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin. Before that, pianists preferred bolder compromises.

The Artistic Temperaments Festival gives us the opportunity to hear what we’ve been missing. Our great collection of keyboard instruments – including one of our fine modern grands – will be tuned historically. Our Steinway will remain in the modern tuning so we can compare.

The important thing about historical tunings is that the different keys – D major, A minor, and so on – all sound different from one another. There was actually a reason for the weird chromatic semitones in Haydn’s last sonata; a reason for Beethoven choosing C minor for one sonata and C-sharp minor for another; even a reason for Schubert’s beloved G-flat Impromptu first being published in the key of G. It’s a question of harmonic flavour, like using the right herbs and spices.

This is the next big thing to hit the way the world hears the canon of musical masterpieces, and Southampton is well ahead of the curve, with its international concert hall and its famously successful Music Department.

In 1984, I was the first to record Schubert’s Winterreise on a piano of his time, with the baritone David Wilson-Johnson; and my first piano recording using early temperaments came out twenty-five years ago. Now we can use the Keyboard Collection I’ve created at Southampton over two decades to bring all these ideas out into the open. Artistic Temperaments will be a concentrated focus on an important topic, and it will be truly unique to Southampton.

Professor David Owen Norris

Instruments featured in Artistic Temperaments

Broadwood Grand Pianoforte – 1796
Schantz Grand Pianoforte – 1802
Frecker Grand Pianoforte – 1812
Broadwood Grand Pianoforte – 1826
Hopkinson Yacht Piano – 1880
Goble harpsichord – modern
Misina-Taskin two-manual Harpsichord – modern
Fazioli Grand Piano – modern
Steinway Grand Piano – modern

What is Voyages of the Heart?

Voyages of the Heart is a new piece by renowned composer, producer, cellist and kora virtuoso Tunde Jegede, whose work has changed the face of classical and contemporary music in Europe and Africa. His work is described as a ‘unique synthesis of classical, jazz and traditional music’, and this piece is no exception. The pianist for Voyages of the Heart, Jonathan Fashole-Luke describes how this project involves ‘different disciplines coming together, there are textures of instruments you wouldn’t normally hear together’. This piece features 32 songs, and encompasses vast ranges of musical disciplines, including Indian classical, Irish Gaelic and Reggae.

What is Mayflower400?

Southampton will be the first city to approach a Mayflower anniversary through the lens of migration. The Mayflower is one of many migrant ships that have left from or arrived in Southampton during the past seven centuries; as a result 148 languages are currently spoken in the city. We see the anniversary as an opportunity to reveal this rich and diverse history, and to encourage communities to tell their stories, many of which will have previously been hidden. Find out more about the Mayflower 400 Programme in Southampton.