NFS The Project-

	New French Song Twenty new settings of French words by British composers Alison Smart (Soprano) Katharine Durran (Piano)
Tarik O’Regan ~ Sainte Sadie Harrison ~ ..issu stellaire.. Will Todd ~ Le Pont Mirabeau Edward Cowie ~ Les Hiboux Bob Chilcott ~ L’enfant dort John Casken ~ Colloque Sentimental Laurence Crane ~ Tour de France Statistics 1903 – 2003 Adam Gorb ~ La Cloche Fêlée Gabriel Jackson ~ A la Mémoire de Claude Debussy Michael Finnissy ~ Salomé Andrew Keeling ~ Artémis Hugh Wood ~ Alicante Diana Burrell ~ Longtemps ce fut l’été Helen Roe ~ Pourquoi? Nicola LeFanu ~ Billet à Whistler Edward McGuire ~ Rêves de la Bonne Heure Judith Bingham ~ La Jeune Morte Roger Redgate ~ Mirlitonnades Howard Skempton ~ Le Pont Mirabeau Graham Fitkin ~ Les Aliments Blancs
Settings of Guillaume Apollinaire, Charles Baudelaire, Samuel Beckett, Yves Bonnefoy, Jean Cocteau, Laurence Crane , Jose-Maria Heradia, Victor Hugo, Jules Laforgue, Edward McGuire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Gérard de Nerval, Jacques Prévert, Erik Satie, Paul Verlaine.
Click here for : Order form for discs "Alison Smart ... elicited a really impressive range of colours and contours, comfortably handling the stylistic changes between songs." "With a remarkable sensitivity and wide palette of colours, Katharine Durran’s playing was a musical lesson in Art history." Magnus Carey Musical Opinion September/October 2004 For full reviews of the CD and première performance Click here	The Project New French Song has created a whole new repertoire of songs by British composers. The project was conceived in 1999, when soprano Alison Smart and pianist Katharine Durran were giving recitals marking the centenary of Poulenc's birth and celebrating the songs of Fauré. They commissioned twenty exceptional British composers, some of whom were well established, others of whom were yet to receive the recognition they deserve. The composers were asked to set French literature of their choice from the past two hundred years. The texts, ranging from Victor Hugo to the new millennium, were chosen by the composers in consultation with Alison Smart and Katharine Durran, and form a wonderful springboard for the composers' individual expression The result is a fascinating rainbow work covering all the major literary movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, overlapping into the twenty-first century – Romanticism, Symbolism, Surrealism, Cubism, Modernism and post-Modernism The twenty songs were written in 2003 and 2004. Alison Smart and Katharine Durran premièred them on 13th July 2004 at the Purcell Room, South Bank Centre, London. New French Song forms a substantial contribution to the art song repertoire, and demonstrates a rare and far-reaching artistic vision.
Click for : Order form for discs at divine art webpage & audio sample Katharine Durran Back to Index of poets and composers	BBC Singer ALISON SMART specialises in the performance of new vocal repertoire, and is also very much in demand as an oratorio soloist.