45th International Viola Congress 2018

Scenes from Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet" by actors,
accompanied by Prokofiev's "Romeo & Juliet" suite viola/piano (arr. Borisovsky);
Actors and Viola students from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
Anthony Hewitt, piano

Students from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire will perform selected movements from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet arranged by the great Russian violist Vadim Borisovsky. Birmingham is close to Stratford-upon-Avon, a medieval market town in England’s West Midlands and the birthplace of William Shakespeare. The close geographical proximity of these two places, intrinsically links them and for this reason we feel a representation of the Bard’s famous tragedy is a challenge especially suited to our department. However, this will be a performance with a difference.  Actors will narrate our performance, punctuating the music with spoken excerpts from Shakespeare’s play to create a truly immersive experience.

The theme of the 2018 congress; Exploring New Ways to Perform will be wholly represented in this recital which will not only see an orchestral masterpiece reduced to a duo but a ballet transformed to a dramatic presentation combining word and music. This performance demonstrably relates to the first two specified points on the call for proposals: 1. Exploring how to create and/or reach more diverse audiences and 2. Exploring unusual and different ways of performing canonical repertoire.