Transfigured Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective & Francesca Chiejina

• Alexander Zemlinsky (1871 - 1942): Maiblumen blühten überall for Soprano and String Sextet:
• 1 Zemlinsky: Maiblumen blühten überall for Soprano and String Sextet 08:52
• Anton Webern (1883 - 1945): Quintet for strings and piano:
• 2 Webern: Quintet for strings and piano 13:17
• Alma Mahler (1879 - 1964): Die stille Stadt:
• 3 Mahler: Die stille Stadt 03:07
• Laue Sommernacht:
• 4 Mahler: Laue Sommernacht 02:26
• Bei dir ist es traut:
• 5 Mahler: Bei dir ist es traut 01:54
• Erntelied:
• 6 Mahler: Erntelied 04:56
• Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951): Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4:
• 7 Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4: I. Sehr langsam 06:08
• 8 Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4: II. Breiter 08:07
• 9 Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4: III. Sehr breit und langsam 09:24
• 10 Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4: IV. Sehr ruhig 04:11
• Total Runtime 01:02:22

Info for Transfigured

Known for its championship of neglected repertoire, the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective presents a programme of works by members of the Second Viennese School, based around Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. Probably Schoenberg’s best-known piece – in either of its two orchestral versions or the original string sextet version heard here, Verklärte Nacht is certainly not neglected! The Collective has chosen to surround it, however, with works that are much less well known, producing a fascinating and rewarding programme. Schoenberg composed the work in 1899, whilst on holiday with his friend and fellow composer Alexander Zemlinsky and Zemlinsky’s sister, Mathilde, whom Schoenberg would marry two years later. Zemlinsky’s Maiblumen blühten überall, for soprano and string sextet, was never completed, intended originally to be a much larger work. Webern studied composition with both Zemlinsky and Schoenberg. His Piano Quintet may, like Zemlinsky’s composition, have been conceived a part of a larger work, but only this one movement was ever composed. Alma Schindler was another pupil of Zemlinsky, one with whom he developed a deep romantic infatuation. Their relationship ended when she herself fell in love with Gustav Mahler who, when they married, famously forbade her from pursuing her career as a composer. The four songs included here (arranged for soprano and string sextet by Tom Poster) are embedded in the soundworld of Zemlinsky and Schoenberg, and offer an intriguing glimpse of what she might have composed in other circumstances...

Francesca Chiejina, soprano
Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

Francesca Chiejina
Nigerian-American soprano Francesca Chiejina is a recent graduate of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where her roles included Countess Ceprano Rigoletto, Lady-in-Waiting Macbeth, Voice from Heaven Don Carlo, and Ines Il trovatore. She also sang Micaëla La tragédie de Carmen at Wilton’s Music Hall, Melantho/Love The Return of Ulysses at the Roundhouse, and the soprano solos in Gorecki’s Third Symphony for the world premiere of a new work by renowned choreographer Crystal Pite for The Royal Ballet, and covered Ifigenia Oreste, Antonia Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Giannetta L’elisir d’amore, and Arbate Midridate, re di Ponto.

In the 2022/23 season she sings High Priestess Aida at Royal Opera House and Lauretta Il Trittico with Scottish Opera. She also sings Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs for New Crystal Pite with Royal Ballet at Royal Opera House and Tippett's A Child of Our Time with Cambridge Philharmonic Society. Recent operatic highlights include Mimì La bohème (Nevill Holt Opera, English Touring Opera); Melissa Amadigi (English Touring Opera); Miss Jessel The Turn of the Screw (OperaGlass Works); the title role in English Touring Opera’s film of Elena Langer and Glyn Maxwell’s Ariadne; Freia RhineGold (Birmingham Opera Company); Anne Trulove The Rake’s Progress (Blackheath Halls Opera); her debut with Capella Cracoviensis as Aldimira Sigismondo; her house and role debut as Clara Porgy and Bess at Grange Park Opera; her debut with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (Serena Porgy and Bess); Cio-Cio San Madama Butterfly (scenes) at Guildhall School of Music and Drama; and Pamina Die Zauberflöte, Berta Il barbiere di Siviglia, Countess Le nozze di Figaro (scenes) and Alice Ford Falstaff (scenes), all at the University of Michigan.

On the concert platform she has recently sung Berg’s Seven Early Songs with the Sinfonia of London and John Wilson at the BBC Proms, Mozart’s Requiem with Crouch End Festival Chorus, Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs with Imperial College Symphony Orchestra at Cadogan Hall, Bach’s St John Passion with Huddersfield Choral Society and Manchester Camerata, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the BBC Philharmonic and with the Royal Northern Sinfonia at the Sage Gateshead; Handel’s Messiah with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall; Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music at the Last Night of the BBC Proms; and Schubert’s Winterreise in recital at Blackheath Halls.

Chiejina has participated in masterclasses with Martin Katz, Kamal Khan, Gianna Rolandi, Joyce DiDonato, Brigitte Fassbänder, Edith Wiens and Felicity Lott. Competition successes include reaching the finals of the inaugural Glyndebourne Opera Cup in 2018, the semi-finals in the National Mozart Competition and winning the GSMD English Song Prize, the GSMD Aria Prize, as well as second prize in the Classical Singer Competition. She was also a finalist in the 2017 Kathleen Ferrier Awards. She has received Loveday, Marianne Falke, Maurice H and Evangeline L Dumesnil, George Shirley Voice and Willis-Patterson Scholarships.

Chiejina studied at the University of Michigan with Martha Sheil and James Paterson, and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Sue McCulloch.

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective
is a flexible ensemble of wonderful, joyful, kind, passionate musicians who can’t wait to share chamber music with you.

Like many musicians, we spend a lot of time worrying about the world - about inequality, prejudice, violence, bullying, divisive rhetoric. Chamber music has an extraordinary power to bring people together: it unites musicians as equals, and draws listeners in to its intimate, transportive world.

We love to devise creative and innovative programmes, to curate multi-concert series and residencies, and to showcase great music both familiar and lesser-known. Our diverse and brilliant team hopes also to be able to inspire and educate audiences of all generations in the joys of chamber music, and ultimately to bring a bit of happiness and unity to our currently rather fractured-seeming world.

Booklet for Transfigured