Solo Guitar recital with Declan Hickey

The Victorian proportions of our Hampstead Lane home are so perfect for solo guitar that we are delighted that Declan Hickey is joining us on May 16th for a programme of guitar music running from the early 19th century to today.

While passionate about contemporary music - Declan has premiered works by Oliver Rudland, Declan Molloy, Jack Gionis and Archie John and performed Harrison Birtwhistle's The World is Discovered with the London Sinfonietta Academy - he is also an active musicologist. Under his musicologist hat he has studied the  early 19th century guitar craze known as the ‘Great Vogue’ and, moving forwards, the complete guitar works of Lennox Berkeley and Michael Tippett.  He is currently investigating the Victorian poet-composer William Ball.

PROGRAMME

Jean Françaix (1912–97) Prélude 

Joseph Kaspar Mertz (1806–1856) Elegie

Jorge Morel (1931–2021) Sonatina 
• Allegretto
• Andante espressivo
• Allegro

Tōru Takemitsu (1930-1996) Equinox

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887–1959) Suite Populaire Brésilienne 
• Mazurka-Choro
• Gavota-Choro
• Chorinho

Leo Brouwer (1939) Variations on a Theme by Victor Jara 

SUPPER:

There will be a buffet supper after the performance which, weather permitting, might even be served in the garden. Included in the price of your ticket.

DECLAN HICKEY:

Declan read Music at the University of Cambridge, where he took a starred first-class degree. A scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music followed, where he studied the guitar with Michael Lewin and Fabio Zanon, and the theorbo with Elizabeth Kenny.

He is now based in London where he is active as a soloist, chamber musician and arranger. Ongoing projects include the revival of the 19th century ‘Great Vogue’ for the guitar in historically appropriate venues, a collaboration with composer Jonty Lefroy Watt and poet Zadie Loft on a large-scale song cycle for guitar and mezzosoprano and an upcoming programme of Michael Tippett and his East Anglian contemporaries in the composer’s hometown of Wetherden, Suffolk . Declan also plays collaborative programmes with saxophonist Sophia Elger, violinist Eliza Nagle and recorder player Lizzie Knatt.