7:00pm-9:30pm on Wednesday 19 March
Times shown are in GMT (UTC +0) up to the 26th March. For events on or after 27th March times are in BST (UTC +1).
Churchill College, The Chapel, Storeys Way, CB3 0DS
Maurice Ravel’s Chansons madécasses of 1925 set poetry from 1878 by the French poet Évariste de Parny. Ravel’s setting was controversial at the time due to the anti-colonial central poem Aoua! and they remain controversial today in part due to the erotic exoticism of the outer songs. Coupled with some strident harmonic language, they represent one of Ravel’s boldest but least-known musical statements. De Parny claimed to “have collected and translated some songs” from Madagascar, but it is now thought these were his own authorship. Mezzo Lotte Betts-Dean and the Marsyas Trio, current Artist By-Fellows of Churchill College, will also present two more recent works conceived to partner Ravel’s work. Judith Wier’s Nuit d’Afrique (2015), sets poetry by female writers Fatou Ndiaye Sow from Senegal, Véronique Tadjo from Ivory Coast and Marie-Léontine Tsibinda from the Repbulic of Congo.
Then, to celebrate the centenary of Ravel’s Chanson madécasses, the trio have commissioned Ewan Campbell’s Traduit de la nuit, setting poetry by the Malagasy poet Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo. This programme of entirely French literary sources is completed by Debussy’s Les Chansons de Bilitis, settings of poetry by Pierre Louÿs. Continuing the theme real and false translations, Louÿs attributed the poems to Bilitis, an entirely fabricated Ancient Greek poet contemporary to Sappho. The event includes a pre-concert talk led by Prof. Charles Forsdick, professor of French and Francophone literature with a specialism in colonial and post-colonial literature, who will help us navigate the complexities of engaging with historic and contemporary music and poetry from Africa and Madagascar.
Through conversation with the composers, the pre-concert talk will also explore the process of translation between languages, cultures and artforms.
19th March 2025
The Chapel at Churchill College
19:00 – pre-concert talk
20:00 – concert
Maurice Ravel - La flute enchantée (Shéhérazade)
Claude Debussy Chansons de Bilitis
Judith Weir Nuits d'Afrique
Ewan Campbell Traduit de la nuit
Ravel Chansons madécasses
Lotte Betts-Dean – mezzo soprano
Helen Vidovich – flute
Olga Stezhko – piano
Val Welbanks – cello
Prof. Charles Forsdick
