New French Song has created a whole new repertoire of songs by British composers. The artists commissioned twenty exceptional British composers, some of whom were well established, others of whom were yet to receive the recognition they deserve. The composers were asked to set French literature of their choice from the past two hundred years. The result is a fascinating rainbow work covering all the major literary movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, overlapping into the twenty-first century – Romanticism, Symbolism, Surrealism, Cubism, Modernism and post-Modernism.
Smart and Durran in concert: New French Song premiere at the Purcell Room July 2004:
"excellent musicians with a strong mutual rapport" (Independent)
"powerful sense of atmosphere" (Independent)
"Alison Smart ... elicited a really impressive range of colours and contours, comfortably handling the stylistic changes between songs...With a remarkable sensitivity and wide pallet of colours, Katharine Durran’s playing was a musical lesson in Art history." (Musical Opinion)
