A County Durham musician and composer has received surprise honours from two distinguished personalities in the world of classical music.
Janet Graham was given an extremely complimentary UK magazine review of two works for piano she composed during the Covid lockdown.
They were played at a recent celebratory concert in York by Dr Aleksander Szram, Director of Music at London’s prestigious Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.
Janet then learned that three more of her pieces are to be featured in a special London recital later this month by Anthony Green, a gifted and respected composer and pianist who once taught Dr Szram at Trinity Laban Conservatoire.
“Tony Green is an old friend who continued championing my piano music throughout the 23 years when I was working as a music therapist and didn't have much time for composing.
"He has included my music in numerous recitals over the years and two of the pieces he'll be playing are dedicated to him”, said Janet from at her home in Bishop Middleham, near Sedgefield, where she is better known to most as Mrs Deane (she married her organist husband, Philip, in 1973).
She is also the organist at St Michael’s Church in Bishop Middleham as well as leader of the community’s bereavement support service.
Unknown to Janet, sitting in the audience at the York concert to celebrate the 75th birthday of internationally acclaimed composer, teacher and director and former Professor of Music at York University Nicola LeFanu, a pioneer in the world of contemporary women’s music, was Paul Conway, a respected critic from ‘Musical Opinion’, a leading quarterly UK magazine dedicated to classical music.
He subsequently described one of Janet’s compositions as “an enchanting meditative piece” and said that Dr Szram’s ‘poetic and spacious interpretation of the composer’s sophisticated yet directly expressive musical language cast a potent spell over the audience”.
At the London concert later this month, Anthony Green will play three of Janet's compositions, including the first performance of 'Winter Wanderings', written in 2020.
The recital will mark the special birthdays of three respected UK guest composers - though, not surprisingly perhaps, Janet prefers to leave it to the reader to guess which of her birthdays it is.
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