I will be appearing on the radio show “Miraculous Music” on Radio Lightworker hosted by my old friend Katie Rose www.therosewindow.org
In this interview I talk about my own journey from opera singer to healer, coach and therapist and how I came to develop Circular Sounds with my friend and business partner Joellen Lily
I will be posting a link as soon as the interview is broadcast.
Darren sings the role of Eddie KGB in this crazy and brilliant new opera by Brian Irvine and John McIlduff
Venue :Grand Opera House, Belfast
Times : 21 Oct 2010 7:30PM – 23 Oct 2010 7:32PM
Booking information : Tickets: £15 – £25 Half price student concessions available Booking for this event through the Grand Opera House at www.goh.co.uk or (028) 9024 1919.
Postcards from Dumbworld World premiere of a new chamber opera
Composer/Conductor Brian Irvine
Writer/Director John McIlduff
Designer Diego Pitarch
“While others bang on about the besieging of time-honoured genre boundaries by contemporary music, the Brian Irvine Ensemble simply operates as if those boundaries had never even existed…a joy” Andrew Johnstone, Irish Times – Postcards from Dumbworld preview
“Some of the most exhilarating and imaginative music you’ll ever hope to hear…tightly written and superbly paced… exuberant, spontaneous and irresistibly alive.” Washington Post
Set in a bingo hall, with appearances from KGB agents, giant rabbits and quite possibly your next door neighbour, this new opera by award winning composer Brian Irvine certainly ‘breaks the bubble’ when it comes to most people’s perception of opera. Poignant, comic, poetic, uplifting, Postcards from Dumbworld follows the journey of several interconnected individuals – their hopes, aspirations, magnetic oddness and fragile beauty. It is a world that is at once surreal and familiar; fuelled by dreams and a quest for the moment when things make sense. Performed by outstanding international cast of 24 singers and musicians, Postcards from Dumbworld conjures up a unique sound world that has overtones of Britten or Tom Waits or Berg or Kurt Weill but feels like David Lynch or Lars Von Trier or Roy Anderson.
Messing Church, CO5 9TU
Tickets £10 / £5
The subject of this year’s Roman River Festival is romance and Darren has teamed up with guitarist Jack Ross in a new collaboration to bring a programme of love songs charting “A Year in the Love of….” a look at love through the four seasons, following the course of a relationship from first love in spring, high passion in summer, rocky times in autumn to a break up in winter… but with a sprig of hope in the budding of a new spring at the end. Composers from the worlds of Jazz, Rock and Opera make up this programme, with many old favourites interspersed with some real surprises.
Tickets available from Roman River Festival
Darren is training as a musician in the Music for Life programme in a Brighton care home, in its first project outside of London. Music for Life is a project pioneering and developing interactive music workshops for people living with dementia. Work takes place in residential homes, hospitals and special day care centres. The project aims to:
It focuses on people who can be isolated and disempowered as a result of the advanced stage of their dementia. During projects, specially trained musicians work alongside small groups of people with dementia and their carers – drawing out individuals and enhancing communication.
Musicians interact with participants – identifying and building on areas still intact within a person suffering the losses associated with the later stages of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia: memory, physical capacities, personality changes and accompanying loss of identity.
Participant’s personalities come through in the work. Carers who are also part of the team can then re-evaluate their care of individuals in the light of their experience and observations during the project.
Music for Life was founded by Linda Rose in 1993 and developed together with an expanding team of musicians in association with Jewish Care. Music for Life is now managed by Wigmore Hall
Recital by Clare McCaldin (mezzo), Darren Abrahams (tenor), Lindy Tennent-Brown (piano) and Stephen Disley (organ)
The programme includes the wonderful Hermit Songs by Samuel Barber, as well as favourites by Schubert and Bach’s famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor for organ. The second half belongs to Darren and Lindy, whose duo partnership is breaking down the traditional concert format and stirring up some unexpected and exciting musical juxtapositions. Clare will be joining them for a splendid finale.
This concert is a fund-raiser for the monastic Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, Yorkshire, an amazing and inspiring group of individuals. We have deliberately priced the tickets low in the hope of encouraging a large audience. Please come along if you can and if you want to know more about the Centenary Appeal, for which we are fundraising, here is the website http://www.mirfieldcommunity.org.uk/
ART MUSIC FOOD WINE
Situated in the centre of Chichester, England, Pallant House Gallery is a Queen Anne townhouse and a contemporary building by Long & Kentish in association with Prof. Sir Colin St. John Wilson. The Gallery holds one of the best collections of 20th century British art in the country, including important works by amongst others; Andrews, Auerbach, Blake, Caulfield, Freud, Hamilton, Hodgkin, Nicholson, Moore, Paolozzi. Piper, Sickert and Sutherland.
Darren and Lindy have picked key works from this amazing collection to take you on a musical journey from Bach to KD Lang. They hope that by stimulating your ears you are sure to see the collection with new eyes. Amongst the works showcased are Gino Severini’s “Danceuse No.5″, Hogarth’s “The Beggar’s Opera”, Michael Andrews’ “The Colony Room” and Henry Moore’s “Two Sleepers”.
A special canapé menu has been created by Sam Mahoney, the renowned chef of Chichester’s premiere restaurant Field and Fork for the evening and this will be served with wine before the concert and during the interval.
This concert allows a rare opportunity to see the gallery, the permanent collection and four temporary exhibitions, whilst enjoying incredible food and beautiful music – not to be missed!
£40. Please apply to Reception for tickets 01243 774557
Exposure offers a unique chance to sample bite-sized chunks of new works by up-and-coming composers. For four nights only, ROH2 tunrs the Linbury Studio at the Royal Opera House into a cosy, cabaret setting, featuring recent and future work by composers across a wide range of contemporary opera and music theatre.
Fragments and glimpses of arias, scenes, animated films and ambient music make up two alternating evenings of entertainment. Prop up the bar or grab a table down at the Linbury to see snapshots of this fresh, new and exciting talent.
Highlights include Tarik O’Regan’s forthcoming Heart of Darkness, Deloitte Ignite’s acclaimed Twitter Opera, Ed Hughes’ Cocteau in the Underworld and Jonathan Gill and Stephen Plaice’s Moon on a Stick. Plus works by rising stars Laura Bowler, Sasha Siem and Phillip Neil Martin.
Tickets £10 (students £8)
DISCOVER MORE
Beethoven Coriolan Overture;
Symphony No.9 in D minor Choral
Vaughan Williams Toward the Unknown Region
£30.00 / £20.00 / £15.00
In aid of Crisis*
Darren returns to Italy to sing Pirelli in the first Italian production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. Performances are 8th and 10th of November at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna and 15th and 17th of November at the Teatro Comunale di Piacenza.
