Stephen Fry adds his voice to Ensemble Reza' s Cuckfield concert

Mid Sussex-based Ensemble Reza are offering a live stream concert with a pre-recorded performance from Stephen Fry.
Ensemble RezaEnsemble Reza
Ensemble Reza

Spokeswoman Hannah Carter explains: “Stephen Fry agreed to narrate and record Richard Dehmel’s poem Transfigured Night (Verklärte Nacht) for our first ticketed concert of the year at Holy Trinity Church, Cuckfield on Sunday, October 18 at 6pm.

“The recording is magical and brings the whole poem Transfigured Night to life and makes the music even more special. Schoenberg wrote this piece when he was still influenced by the great German Romantics like Brahms and Wagner, and it is beautifully melodic. The programme will also include Mozart’s brilliant Quintet in G Minor.

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“We have been running weekly live streamed concerts on the Ensemble Reza YouTube channel since March. Although nothing will ever beat the experience of being at a concert in person, we have mastered both the sound and picture for live events as our audience would agree.

“We will be live streaming this concert from Holy Trinity Church in Cuckfield via a private link from our YouTube channel. Tickets will cost £10 per household and available from: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/ensemble-reza. I hope you will be able to join us!

Hannah added: “I heard Stephen Fry talking about Verklärte Nacht with great enthusiasm on Radio 3 several years ago just after we had performed the work at the Hurst Festival. I thought it would be amazing to have him narrate the poem for us, but knew this would be almost impossible to arrange. After a chat with a publishing friend and a few emails to his agent, he kindly agreed to pre-record the poem. His interpretation is beautiful.

“This will be our first ticketed virtual concert and any profits we make will be used to develop our community programme and especially to improve young peoples’ wellbeing and mental health through music making. We are continuing to live stream all our concerts through our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp-fenf137J_J4rCM620tqw. We have now had over 22.5k views and 830 subscribers since we launched the channel in March. Like many arts organisations, we are currently waiting to hear whether we will be awarded any further funding from the Arts Council so the next few months could be very tricky.”