|
CONCERTS IN OXFORD
Jack Gibbons has been giving highly acclaimed recitals in the university
city of Oxford for over 35 years, and his Oxford Summer Piano Series has
been running in the city without a break
for 28 years! All concerts take place in the
historic Holywell Music Room, Europe's oldest purpose-built concert
hall, opened in 1748, situated in the centre of the
city in Holywell Street.
Generous discounts are available for advance purchases and season
tickets:
Purchase your tickets in advance
to receive a 20% discount on the full
ticket price.
Purchase an 8-concert season ticket to receive a 60%
discount on the full ticket price!
Holywell Music Room, Oxford
July and August 2015
JACK GIBBONS'
28th annual Summer Piano Series
"MUSICAL
PORTRAITS"
An intimate
look at the lives and music of great composers.
Sunday 5 July:
Gershwin: ‘a heady surf of vitality’
Wednesday 8 July:
Beethoven: ‘an utterly untamed personality’
Sunday 12 July:
Mozart: ‘the age of enlightenment’
Wednesday 15 July:
Chopin: ‘transcending the limits of propriety’
Wednesday 22 July:
Liszt: ‘Lisztomania - a veritable insanity’
Wednesday 5 August
A Gershwin Party
Sunday 9 August:
A
Chopin Soirée
Wednesday 12 August:
Farewell Piano Party
TICKETS
Full price tickets (from the hall on concert nights, subject to
availability): £20
Advance purchase discount tickets (available up to 24 hours before each
concert): £16
8-concert season ticket: £64
Tickets can also be purchased in person (or by phone or internet) from
Tickets Oxford, Oxford Playhouse, Oxford (tel 01865 305305).
Scroll down for more information on each concert and to purchase
tickets...
CONCERT 1:
GERSHWIN
'...a heady
surf of vitality'
Holywell Music Room, Oxford
Sunday 5th July 2015 at 8.00PM
Jack Gibbons has been described by Classic FM as “one of the world’s
greatest Gershwin exponents”. Gibbons opens the 28th
season of his acclaimed Summer Piano Series with his only
all-Gershwin concert in England this year. His
programme recreates the composer’s
unique and original virtuoso piano style through his note-for-note
reconstructions of the composer’s original recordings.
Works include Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, and the
composer's own spectacular show-tune
improvisations (on The Man I Love, Fascinating Rhythm, Someone To Watch
Over Me, and more).
""To listen to
Gibbons' performances is to marvel afresh at his astonishing virtuosity,
his rare control of the music's rhythmic vigour and his supreme relish
for its melodic richness... Gershwin does not come more exhilarating
than this"
Classic CD magazine
CONCERT 2:
BEETHOVEN
'...an utterly untamed personality'
Holywell Music Room,
Oxford
Wednesday 8th July 2015 at 8.00PM
.jpg)
Four of Beethoven's greatest piano works (Moonlight, Pathétique,
Appassionata and Op.109 sonatas) frame a concert of music and words
portraying the tragic life, tempestuous personality, and extraordinary
inspiration of a man once described by the poet Goethe as “an utterly
untamed personality”. Beethoven's life story is an
amazing and moving account of triumph over adversity.
"Jack Gibbons opened his 18th summer season at the Holywell last
week amid a mild outbreak of Gibbons-mania. The start of the concert was
delayed by ten minutes as staff struggled to cope with the demand for
seats. Gibbons' affinity with Beethoven's music is such that he
transcends mere recital; rather, he becomes one with the composer,
absorbing his moods and passions, and recreating his bravura technique."
Oxford Times
CONCERT 3:
MOZART
'...the age of enlightenment'
Holywell Music Room,
Oxford
Sunday 12th July 2015 at 8.00PM
An intimate portrait of one of the greatest of all composers, revealed
through his own words and divine music. Mozart's
struggles for independence coincided with the era of enlightenment and
America's own fight for independence; the American philosophy of free
thought and the individual's right to determine their own future permeated Europe
throughout Mozart's lifetime, and inspired Lorenzo da Ponte, the
librettist of three of Mozart's greatest operas, to eventually emigrate
to the United States and became an American citizen. Works in tonight's
concert include Rondo Alla Turca,
sonatas K.310 & 545; Adagio in B minor K.540 and extracts from The
Marriage of Figaro and piano concertos nos. 23, K.488 & 27, K.595.
"Jack Gibbons is not
simply a pianist, he is a magician whose playing brings back to life
another era... His enthusiasm was evident from the start and made all
the more clear in his interesting and at times humorous commentary. They
gave the performances a stamp of authority that made the evening
memorable."
Worcester MA Gazette,
USA
CONCERT 4:
CHOPIN
'...transcending
the limits of propriety'
Holywell Music Room, Oxford
Wednesday 15th July 2015 at 8.00PM
Schumann described Chopin's music as a "cannon buried in flowers",
while a Victorian biographer warned that the composer
was "driven by his feelings onward, ever onward, [as the music]
grows by-and-by more passionate...
transcending the limits of propriety"! Tonight’s programme includes some
of the composer’s most dramatic and ground breaking works: Polonaise
in F sharp minor Op.44, Funeral March Sonata Op.35, Ballade no.3, six
Etudes from Opp.10 & 25 and
a selection of Preludes.
"Gibbons revealed a
freshness of manner, everything he did making a musically valid point.
The same freshness in his reaction was evident in Chopin’s Sonata
Op.35, which was again spiced with colour. The Funeral March was
monumentally mournful. The finale was even more fleeting than usual,
with some careful pedalling heightening its ghostliness."
The Times
CONCERT 5:
LISZT
'...Lisztomania
- a veritable insanity'
Holywell Music Room,
Oxford
Wednesday 22nd
July 2015 at 8.00PM
The term 'Lisztomania' was coined to describe the euphoric
atmosphere of Liszt's wild youthful concerts,
while the humble religious attire
Liszt wore in later life led to
the nickname 'Abbé
Liszt'. Tonight’s music, exploring all sides
of Liszt’s complex personality, includes
Hungarian Rhapsody no.2, Un Sospiro, La
Campanella, Funérailles, Liebestraum, Sonata in B minor
and other works.
"Jack Gibbons himself is
a pianist of genius, with an endearing Jimmy Stewart-like awkwardness, a
charming smile and about forty hands. His delight in and enthusiasm for
the music is almost tangible in the haze of nervous energy that radiates
from him."
Daily Information
CONCERT 6:
A GERSHWIN
PARTY
'...the room became freshly oxygenated'
Holywell Music Room, Oxford
Wednesday 5th August 2015 at 8.00PM
A recreation of the music heard at Gershwin’s legendary parties in New
York and Paris in the 1920s and 30s, at which the composer was said to
have "oxygenated” the room
with his "vitality... everybody felt it, everybody breathed it".
In addition to Gibbons’ acclaimed ‘authentic Gershwin’ recreations the
concert will feature music by composers associated with Gershwin: Irving
Berlin, Fats Waller, Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei
Rachmaninoff and others. Titles will include Fascinating Rhythm,
Carolina Shout, Let’s Face The Music and Dance, etc., culminating in the
Rhapsody in Blue.
"Jack Gibbons is THE Gershwin
pianist of our time. Gibbons has transcribed the
composer's flamboyant and fiendishly difficult recreations of his own
show-tunes... he dashes off the most insanely difficult passage-work
with a broad grin. This is music that requires verve, nerve, and
Gibbons' enviable capacity to generate party atmosphere."
BBC
CONCERT 7:
A CHOPIN
SOIRÉE
'...listening to him, one yields with one's whole soul'
Holywell Music Room,
Oxford
Sunday 9th August 2015 at 8.00PM
As
a performer Chopin was most at home in the intimate atmosphere of the
Parisian salons, where "a small circle of select auditors, whose real
desire to hear him was beyond doubt, could alone determine him to
approach the piano. What emotions he would then call forth" (wrote
Berlioz). In such an environment Chopin could transform "a public into a
circle of friends" by his music. Tonight's program
recreates
the rarefied atmosphere of Chopin’s Parisian soirées in the 1830s and
40s, with a selection of music Chopin himself played
on such occasions. Works will include the
Polonaise in A flat Op.53, Berceuse, Barcarolle,
Ballade no.4, Scherzo no.2 and a selection of Etudes, Waltzes, Impromptus
and Mazurkas.
"Gibbons’ playing is
constantly vibrant and alive, and communicates
a physical joy in his instrument one rarely experiences today"
Classical Net
Sold out. Return tickets
may be available on the door the night of the concert at the full price
of £20 each (doors open 7.15pm).
CONCERT 8:
JACK GIBBONS' FAREWELL PIANO PARTY
including audience
requests
Holywell Music Room,
Oxford
Wednesday 12th August 2015 at 8.00PM
Jack Gibbons concludes his 28th annual Summer Piano Series with his
traditional end of summer mix of both serious and light hearted music,
including requests chosen on the night by the audience. Music to include
works by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Alkan, Debussy, Ravel, Gershwin,
Gibbons & others.
"Jack Gibbons is one of
Oxford’s treasures... His affinity with [the composer] is such that he
transcends mere recital; rather, he becomes one with the composer,
absorbing his moods and passions, and recreating his bravura technique."
Oxford Times
Sold out. Return tickets
may be available on the door the night of the concert at the full price
of £20 each (doors open 7.15pm).
HOW TO FIND THE
CONCERT HALLS IN OXFORD:
The map below shows the
location of popular concert locations in the city including the historic
Holywell Music Room, as well as the location of the Oxford Playhouse's
Tickets Oxford box office.
The Holywell Music Room is well served by nearby pubs, being a few yards
from both the Kings Arms and Turf Tavern pubs (see second image below).  
Click on the image below to read
reviews of past Oxford concerts  |
