English String Orchestra, Corinne Frost
Corinne Frost
Corinne Frost and Janine Smith
Corinne Frost, Solihull Symphony Orchestra, Recital, Concert
Downside Up recital concert
Corinne Frost and Janine Smith, Corinne Frost, Janine Smith
by Chad Suzo
CORINNE FROST
Dip.R.A.M. L.R.A.M
Corinne’s first interest in playing came when she was only three years old and was taken to a concert where she fell in love with the cello. Lessons on a lovely old one-eighth size cello followed when she was five. At 17 Corinne won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Musicwhere she studied with Dame Florence Hooton and won a number of prizes. After graduation from the R.A.M. Corinne was able to study with Pierre Fournier, having been awarded scholarships from the Royal Society of Arts and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust. She then enjoyed a varied chamber career which included recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room and Manchester midday series. She was a prize winner at the Royal Tunbridge Wells and Greater London Arts Young Musicians competitions. In 1979 Corinne joined the Philharmonia Orchestra with whom she travelled extensively and worked with some wonderful conductors and musicians. In 1993 she came to Worcestershire as co-principal cellist of the English Symphony Orchestra and English String Orchestra. She is an associate member of the C.B.S..O, loves teaching and coaching to all ages and enjoys being involved in a variety of chamber music groups including The ESO String Orchestra, The London Mozart Players, Sinfonia Viva and Epiphany. Corinne's live performance of Forvantan with the Solihull Symphony Orchestra was recently chosen to be played on BBC Radio 3 as part of the 'Play to the Nation' series. As well as recitals and concerto performanes Corinne has set up an ESO programme to play in Homes and Hospices in the Worcestershire area.
Click Here for Career Overview
Past
1989-1993
LONDON MOZART PLAYERS
1979-1988
THE PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA (member1979-1986): venues included the Sydney Opera House, Festival Hall, Barbican and Carnegie Hall. Recitals with pianists Alan Gravill and Michael Dussek. Elgar Cello Concerto, Kingston. Wigmore Hall recital at Purcell Room with Alan Gravill
Present
2008 to date
Set up and run the ESO 'Homes and Hospices' scheme, bringing classical music to those who cannot normally experience it.
2000 to date
Concertos and Recitals.
1995 to date
CITY OF BIRMINGHAM SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: Appointed Associate Member in January 2003
1992 to date
ENGLISH STRING/SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: Co-Principal Cellist
Awards
Douglas Cameron Sonata Prize, May Mukle Concerto Prize, Royal Society of Arts Scholarship, Countess of Munster Musical Trust Scholarship, Associated Board Scholarship to Royal Academy of Music, G.L.A.A competition leading to “Young Musician ‘78”.
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RECENT CONCERTS AND REVIEWS
Corinne Frost cello and Janine Smith piano
Recital at The Lion Ballroom
Friday 15th May 2009
Corinne Frost cello and Stephen Warner double bass/guitar
Shelsley Beauchamp
April 2009
REVIEW
BACK TO MUSIC
UP-COMING CONCERTS
Sept 22nd A Spanish Serenade at Hellens, Much Marcle. This evening includes wine and buffet and is a fundraising concert put on by ESO Friends.
Sept 25th ESO string orchestra in Ledbury, programme to include Vivaldi Cello Concerto with Peter Adams and Corinne Frost. See HERE for details.
Sept 19th Volante Strings at Great Witley Church, programme to include Berkeley Andantino for cello and strings.
Oct 13th ESO string orchestra at Chipping Camden, programme to include Sven Fridolfsson's Forvantan
Nov 11th Burford Chamber Concert to include Sven Fridolsson's Forvantan
Nov 21st Local and Live, 'Downside Up' Recital, Cello and Double Bass/Guitar. Read a previous Downside Up review
Nov 28th Volante Strings Memorail Concert for Angela Richey at the Downs School, Colwall. To include Berkeley Andantino for cello and strings
HERE.
Corinne Frost, Cello, Cellist, Cello Teacher.
MUSIC NOW AVAILABLE!
Track 1:
Cesar Franck Sonata in A, last movement
Live Recital at Leominster, with Janine Smith Piano, The Lion Ballroom, May 15th 2009
Track 2:
Improvisation
Track 3:
Mendelssohn Variations Concertante in D, op17
The above are from the latest CD (£10) entitled:
Live At Leominster- The Lion Ballroom,
Part 1
Part2
To order email Corinne from the Contact Page
LION BALLROOM REVIEW
Who was it once said that the only language in which one could usefully comment on music is – music itself? And one way in which composers do that is by writing variations on themes – their own and other people’s. More of that anon.
But words can report musical events, and there was a singularly happy one in Leominster’s Lion Ballroom, on Friday 15th May. Outside, lashing rain and chilling winds were doing their best to prepare us for the arrival of an English summer. Inside, against the backdrop of this lovely room, built in 1843 but in an earlier Georgian style, the chandeliers shone gently and warmly on a near-capacity audience (any more and the Fire Officer might have started to count heads). They had defied the weather to hear a recital of music for ’cello and piano by Corinne Frost and Janine Smith, artists of very extensive experience and both now based in Worcestershire. Lucky us.
The programme was thoughtfully constructed, admirably appropriate to the period setting, and beautifully executed. This is a duo that sounds as if it has worked together long and hard, really listening to each other. The balance between the instruments – often problematical for composers as well as performers in this combination - was finely judged, the co-ordination precise. One noted particularly Corinne’s experience with the Philharmonia Orchestra in its third and still great incarnation that started in 1979; and that Janine had in 1997 been a finalist in the Young Accompanist of the Year competition. These days, of course, Accompanists are called Collaborative Artists, and this recital was a true collaboration. Variations figured prominently in this programme.
Beethoven was 26 years old, on tour in Berlin in 1796, when he wrote the Twelve Variations on Handel’s “See the Conqu’ring Hero Come”, and perhaps he saw himself in just that light. The cellist for whom he probably wrote his early works, was teacher to King Frederick of Prussia and had met Beethoven as a child, describing him as “very conceited”. Beethoven’s variations are indeed confident and clever, not lacking in swagger and tongue-in-cheek pomposity. Nor do they lack signs of the Beethoven still to emerge; though the profundity of the Diabelli Variations and the exploration of the variation form that was almost obsessive in the last piano sonatas is still far in the future.
Profundity is not the first word that comes to mind when mentioning Mendelssohn, whose Variations Concertantes, written in 1829, came not quite at the end of the first half of the programme. Bi-centenaries of births are convenient excuses for concert promoters and recording companies, but can Mendelssohn really sustain a whole year of celebration and adulation? Like Mozart and Schubert he died young, and we all love child prodigies. His music is often entrancing, recklessly pretty, even; but rarely beautiful in the way that Mozart and Schubert can pierce the heart to its profoundest depths, so that we do not know whether to laugh or cry. Continued.....
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Perhaps the most interesting feature of the programme was that after the Mendelssohn, and without any break for applause, the cellist gave us a solo improvisation. Picking up the quiet dynamic of the last variation and a fragment of a phrase, the cello mused, explored, expanded. Like an uncaged bird it soared, finally settling quietly, like the Mendelssohn, but first having found and enjoyed a freedom, a depth of emotion that young Felix himself might have envied.
The final work of the evening was Cesar Franck’s Violin Sonata in A, written in 1886. The excellent programme note made much of the fact that the composer ‘endorsed’ its transcription from violin to cello. And one sympathises with cellists and their comparative paucity of repertoire: indeed, it is such a marvellous work that one would want to hear it, if there was no alternative, played on an ocarina and accordion. But though the cello can cope with the transcription and transposition involved, the sonata loses more than it gains by such artfulness.
If indeed Franck’s first idea was to write it for the cello, then his second thoughts were infinitely wiser. And his layout of the texture would surely have been different. The violin can ride, clear as a jewel, with and above the rich sonorities of the piano part: the cello gets embedded in them. What should have the fiery sweetness of an Eiswein has, at best, the quality of a superior pudding wine. Asti Spumante is no substitute for Champagne in this company.
Nonetheless, this was a fine performance of a marvellous work that demands and received virtuosic skills and passionate commitment from both players. Attention to details, clarity of inner voices, and care with sonorities were all a joy, even when the music was headlong in its dash to ecstasy.
Congratulations to Espressivofor organising this recital, to the players for its execution – and to Leominster’s listeners who turned out in such numbers to support it. All were amply rewarded.
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DOWNSIDE UP REVIEW
‘Downside Up’ at Shelsley Beauchamp
In the world we live in, many consider classical music to be élitist. Given this sad fact, more and more classical musicians are anxious to present programmes in a format likely to woo those who are normally reluctant to go and hear live classical music. Whether or not this was the motivation for ‘Downside Up’, this unusual duo of Corinne Frost and Stephen Warner certainly breaks any conventional mould in bringing to the public what the two of them describe as “an eclectic mix of music”. Their very different musical backgrounds certainly lend themselves to this. Corinne has been cellist with major orchestras, including the Philharmonia and CBSO, and has had a substantial and varied chamber career. Stephen, on the other hand, has played double bass with such orchestras as the RPO ‘Pops’ Orchestra and London Gala Orchestra alongside ongoing orchestral experience in around 30 West End shows.
This afternoon concert was in a lovely large house, Harborough Bank, in the delightful Worcestershire village of Shelsley Beauchamp. In a spread of pieces from the Baroque to the 20th Century, all played with consummate artistry, mention might particularly be made of those two contrasting musical characterisations, The Swan and The Elephant from Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, and an exciting arrangement from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. For further variety, Corinne also demonstrated her ability on the piano, Stephen his on the guitar while, at one stage, they put their instruments aside altogether to bring an extraordinary virtuosic clapping duet! Words also featured prominently in the form of some fascinating and at times witty background to the music they played, including reference to films that inspired some of it. Definitely different!
John Brain
BACK TO UPCOMING CONCERTS
CURRENT
CORINNE FROST AND JANINE SMITH
Recitals with Corinne Frost cello and Janine Smith piano.
DOWNSIDE UP
And now for something completely different!!
Downside Up offers you an eclectic mix of music for cello and double bass - with guitar, clapping, piano and voice thrown in at no extra cost!!!!
From Bach, Gounod, Telemann and Rossini to Gershwin, Myers and Reich - Downside Up has something for everyone.
Classical, Jazz, Theatre, Poetry - your evening will be introduced by Stephen Warner (bass, guitar, clapping), and Corinne Frost (cello, piano, clapping, voice) Fun and enlightenment for all.
ENGLISH STRING/SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Co-principle Cellist.
CITY OF BIRMINGHAM SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Associate member.
ESO HOMES AND HOSPICES SCHEME
Founder.
LESSONS
At present I teach privately and as a coach with the English Symphony Orchestra’s Children and Youth Orchestra courses.
I am the Senior Cello Teacher at Marlborough College and was Senior Cello Teacher at Gloucester Academy of Music and Performing Arts.
My particular area of specialism is solving posture and technical problems. Having completed various training courses on avoiding injury as a musician, I now work with a physiotherapist who specialises in helping musicians.
I teach all ages and levels of ability including a number of professionals, as we all need advice and encouragement whatever stage of our career!
Where?
I am based in central Worcester, only 5 minutes walk from the station.
CONTACT ME
info_corinnefrost.com
07976 286 570
Corinne’s first interest in playing came when she was only three years old and was taken to a concert where she fell in love with the cello. Lessons on a lovely old one-eighth size cello followed when she was five. At 17 Corinne won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Musicwhere she studied with Dame Florence Hooton and won a number of prizes. After graduation from the R.A.M. Corinne was able to study with Pierre Fournier, having been awarded scholarships from the Royal Society of Arts and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust. She then enjoyed a varied chamber career which included recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room and Manchester midday series. She was a prize winner at the Royal Tunbridge Wells and Greater London Arts Young Musicians competitions. In 1979 Corinne joined the Philharmonia Orchestra with whom she travelled extensively and worked with some wonderful conductors and musicians and more recently came to Worcestershire as co-principal cellist of the English Symphony Orchestra and English String Orchestra. She plays regularly with the C.B.S.O., and has recently been made an associate member. Corinne loves teaching all ages and enjoys being involved in a variety of chamber music groups.
PROFESSIONAL CELLIST
