Grace-Evangeline Mason: The Hart premiered by Sophie Bevan in Liverpool
Composer Grace-Evangeline Mason returns to the woodland glades for her new song cycle The Hart, following the success of her orchestral work The Imagined Forest. Ryan Wigglesworth conducts the premiere on 5 June with soprano Sophie Bevan and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
For her latest commission from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, British composer Grace-Evangeline Mason sets texts by Sara Teasdale, Oscar Wilde and herself, all exploring those folktale appearances of a hart or stag as a mystical messenger, deep in the woods. The new orchestral song cycle was written for soprano Sophie Bevan with Ryan Wigglesworth at the helm of the orchestra, presenting the premiere at Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool on 5 June.
The new 20-minute score is intended as a companion piece to Mason’s The Imagined Forest, which has received more than 20 international performances since its premiere by the RLPO at the BBC Proms in 2021, and is travelling to Denmark and back to the USA this year. The Hart shares its sylvan setting with The Imagined Forest and is the latest Mason work to be programmed by the RLPO and its ensembles in recent seasons, continuing the Liverpudlian relationship and demonstrating the orchestra’s commitment to her music.
The composer comments: “From Arthurian Legend to Hungarian and Celtic mythology, a white stag, or a white hart, has featured in folktales as an otherworldly messenger, or a sign of hope, due to its rare and elusive nature. The Hart explores these themes and, through poetry from Sara Teasdale, Oscar Wilde, and myself, portrays an impressionistic retelling of a tale inspired by folklore across its five movements in which the narrator, void of direction, reflects on her previous, mysterious encounter and strives to see the deer in the forest, once more.”
The concert in Liverpool will be recorded by BBC Radio 3 and broadcast on 12 July. Post-concert Question Time starts 15 minutes after the concert ends (in the Music Room at Philharmonic Hall) with conductor Ryan Wigglesworth and soprano Sophie Bevan.
> Read the full programme note
> Visit the RLPO website
Other recent scores by the West Midlands-born composer include ABLAZE THE MOON, also inspired by the American lyric poet Sara Teasdale and premiered by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under Mark Wigglesworth at the BBC Proms in 2023. Mason's work for chorus, concertante piano and cello, A Memory of the Ocean, commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society and inspired by Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony, has received performances in Bristol, London and Utrecht and its first recording was released by Delphian Records in January this year.
> Further information on Work: The Hart
Photo: Mark Mason