Online Concert: Thomas Bertolotti, cello & Amy Butler, piano

The rest of this year's 2020 Howdenshire Music Project lunchtime concerts will be filmed in Howden Minster behind closed doors and brought to you online via our Facebook and YouTube pages. If and when restrictions are lifted and it is deemed safe, we will also welcome audiences back in person. In the meantime, do tune in online to see and hear our outstanding musicians performing in the wonderful acoustic of the Minster!

This concert will be broadcast online on Thursday 20 August at 1pm at on the 'Howdenshire Music Project' channels on YouTube and Facebook:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXoS78Q7uo119NylM0h3rqA

https://www.facebook.com/howdenshiremusicproject

The concert will remain available to watch on these channels afterwards.

This concert will feature a FEURICH Model 218 grand piano which has been generously loaned to the Howdenshire Music Project for the rest of this year's concert series by the FEURICH piano company in Vienna. Our previous piano (100+ years old and on loan) is in very poor condition and so we are raising funds to acquire a new permanent instrument to serve our local community and audiences for many years to come. Our aim is to purchase outright the wonderful FEURICH piano used in this and the rest of this year's concerts. To this end, we have launched the Howdenshire Grand Piano Appeal.

Any donations towards the Howdenshire Grand Piano Appeal would be very gratefully received. You can donate online at:

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/howdenshire-piano-appeal

Or if you would prefer to donate via cheque, please send a cheque payable to 'Howdenshire Music Project' to 15 Kensington Gardens, Howden, East Yorkshire, DN14 7JN.

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'A Cello at the Opera' - programme:

Castelnuovo-Tedesco - Figaro Fantasy (based on Rossini's Barber of Seville)

Dvorák - 'Song to the Moon' from Rusalka

Beethoven - Seven variations on 'Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen' from Mozart's The Magic Flute

Tchaikovsky - Lensky's aria from Eugene Onegin

Buxton Orr - A Carmen Fantasy (based on Bizet's Carmen)

Encore: Puccini - 'Nessun dorma' from Turandot

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Hull-born Thomas Bertolotti is an award-winning young cellist. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with the Alfredo Piatti chair of cello Josephine Knight, he has been based since 2018 in Milan at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala, where he is principal cello. 

Thomas made his professional concerto debut aged just 19 performing the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Hull Philharmonic Orchestra to great critical acclaim. He has had success in numerous competitions including reaching the finals of the prestigious Royal Academy of Music Brahms Competition as well as receiving a diploma from the Stockholm International Music Competition and a prize in the "Grand Virtuoso Prize". He is increasingly performing internationally and has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in festivals in Europe and the USA.

Amy Butler studies currently with renowned British concert pianist Martin Roscoe. She achieved the highest mark nationally in her Grade 8 piano examination and was awarded a young musician's bursary from the Hull Music Recital Club.

She went on to gain the ABRSM Music Performance Diploma and studied for four years at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she won a choral scholarship and performed in many university recitals. She graduated with a first class degree. Amy performs across the country as a soloist, accompanist and ensemble pianist.