Duo tune up for concert

THE Totnes Early Music Society welcomes Steven Devine and Kate Semmens to the town’s united Free Church on Friday.

Steven is known to many local people through his various roles as a performer, conductor and tutor at the Dartington Summer School. He is the co-principal keyboard player with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, made his London conducting debut in 2002 at the Royal Albert Hall, where he regularly performs, and has recorded over 30 discs including six solo recordings.

Soprano Kate has also been involved at the summer school at Dartington and has sung and recorded with the Monteverdi Choir, Gabrieli and Dunedin Consorts, and Eric Whitacre Singers, as well as performing a host of operatic roles.

At the heart of their programme is a copy of a Viennese fortepiano built by Mattheas Heilmann in 1785, exactly the kind of instrument that Mozart and Haydn would have known.

Steven and Kate’s concert, O Tuneful

Voice, will include songs by both Mozart and Haydn, as well as

Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A Minor and Haydn’s

E Minor Piano Sonata. It concludes with Haydn’s dramatic Arianna a

Naxos. For tickets visit totnesearlymusic.org.uk