Bard College at Simon's Rock: the Early College

S. Berkshire Concert: Hopkinson Smith

Sunday, December 6, 2015

Kellogg Music Center


HOPKINSON SMITH SOLO LUTE RECITAL AT SIMON’S ROCK

On Sunday afternoon, December 6, the great lutenist Hopkinson Smith will return to Kellogg Music Center to offer a program of Elizabethan music for the Renaissance lute.  Smith last appeared at the same venue two years ago in a program of Bach suites, performing for a sold-out audience.  The concert is part of the South Berkshire Concert Series at Bard College of Simon’s Rock. Admission is for a suggested donation of $10.  For further information call 413-528-7212.

Born in New York in 1946, Hopkinson Smith graduated from Harvard with Honors in Music in 1972.  The next year he came to Europe to study with Emilio Pujol in Catalonia and Eugen Dombois in Switzerland.  Since the mid-80’s, he has focused almost exclusively on the solo repertoires for early plucked instruments producing a series of prize-winning recordings for Naïve featuring Spanish music for vihuela and baroque guitar, French lute music of the Renaissance and baroque, early 17th century Italian music and the German high baroque. 

The recording of his lute arrangements of the Bach solo violin Sonatas and Partitas, released in the year 2000, has been called “the best recording of these works on any instrument”. His recordings have also been called ‘wonderfully personal’ (Dowland), “the first recording to do justice to Francesco’s reputation (Da Milano), and “totally riveting” (Bach Cello Suites). He is a frequent winner of the French “Diapason d’or” award.

Hopkinson Smith has performed and given master classes throughout eastern and western Europe, North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Korea and Japan sometimes combining the life-style of a hermit with that of a gypsy.  In 2007 and 2009, he gave concerts and workshops in Palestine under the auspices of the Barenboim-Said Foundation and the Swiss Arts Council. He teaches at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.

About the December program, Mr. Smith has written:

John Dowland, though also a sprightly and humorous composer, is most famous for the darker side of his character and the pervading melancholy that nourished his unquiet soul.  But he was in no way the inventor of highly charged melodic poignancy in solo lute music.  Two important composers of the generation of English lutenists that preceded him clearly show signs of great invention including moments of tormented yearnings which led to music of extraordinary depth.  John Johnson (died in 1594) and Anthony Holborne (died in 1602) were the most prominent lutenists to remain in England during the Elizabethan period (Dowland spent many years on the Continent). They were both virtuosos if the highest calibre as the daring of their diminution techniques attests. 

This program will highlight theirs and Dowland’s works in an evening of masterpieces from the 1580s and 90s.

 

Contact:
Larry Wallach

Phone: 413-528-7212

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