Getting Closer To John Hyatt

February saw the second installment of Manchester Camerata’s Up Close series, in collaboration with musician and artist John Hyatt.  The series aims to break down the barriers between the artists and the audience, and explore new and intimate ways of experiencing high quality music.

UpClose is Manchester Camerata’s four part series aimed at bringing high quality Classical music into different and unexpected venues around the city.

The informal concert series is also important for the developing relationship with artist John Hyatt exploring new ideas and ways of presenting Classical music.   This second performance took place at the Deaf Institute – Café and Music Hall on 7 February 2012.

Artist John Hyatt was joined by Camerata musicians Giovanni Guzzo, Dave Routledge, Richard Williamson, Hannah Roberts and conductor Gergely Madaras.

The atmosphere was electric for this concert featuring an extraordinarily powerful work by Osvaldo Golijov The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind for string quartet and klezmer clarinet.  An arrangement of some Piazzolla music for string quartet by Simon Parkin was followed by a full performance of Shostakovich’s most famous and visceral string quartet no 8.

This performance began with a short talk from artist John Hyatt about his developing collaboration with Camerata, and a pre-performance presentation of his visuals.

There will be two other UpClose concerts – Tuesday 7 March 2012 at the Deaf Institute and Wednesday 16 May 2012 at the Anthony Burgess Foundation.