John Casken Kokoschka’s Doll

Buxton Festival
3 The Square, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6AZ
United Kingdom
01298 70395
http://www.buxtonfestival.co.uk/

Sir John Tomlinson, bass-baritone/ speaker; Rozanna Madylus, mezzo-soprano



The Art of Love Alma Mahler’s Life and Music: a sequence incorporating music by Alma and Gustav Mahler, Zemlinsky, Webern and Wagner

John Casken Kokoschka’s Doll (text by John Casken and Barry Millington)

From the middle of the 20th century onwards a fascination with Gustav Mahler’s music has gone hand in hand with exploration of his unique tortured sensibilities, and been coloured by his emotionally turbulent marriage to the extraordinary Alma Schindler. This imaginative programme, characteristic of Counterpoise’s keen focus on the blend of words with music in heightened dramatic settings, looks at Alma’s intense relationship with her husband, his music and that of his contemporaries, and brings a newly commissioned work for Sir John Tomlinson by the eminent composer John Casken. Counterpoise’s innovative projects always make for thought provoking and affecting music drama. This new work explores the passionate and overwrought relationship between Alma and expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka, promising a moving and striking concert event to remember, with unequivocally one of our generation’s most prominent and well-loved artists.



John Casken : Kokoschka’s Doll