Edward Bhesania visits London’s Kings Place on 20 June 2025 for the recital of Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Marcus Rock, Laura Shipsey, Michael Small, Ailie Robertson, Daniel Kidane, Biber and Bach
Fenella Humphreys’s atmospheric hour-long recital at Kings Place succeeded in offering musical variety while also proving satisfying as a single sequence. She stood on a platform in the hall’s centre with the audience ranged around her on three sides, washes of coloured light enveloping her, and in her playing she constantly sought the contemplative qualities of the music.
Some of the pieces, including Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s enigmatic Entrance Music, were drawn from Humphreys’s 2024 album Prism. Others, including world premieres by Marcus Rock and Laura Shipsey, shared a connection to nature. Michael Small’s Prism seemed to commune with the setting, its fragmentary lines like scatterings of light-strands. A similar iridescence emerged in Ailie Robertson’s Skydance, with its fragile, twittering harmonics.
Rich in double-stopped fifths and wider intervals, Daniel Kidane’s hazy and mesmeric Veiled Light transported us across the Atlantic. In the Passacaglia from Biber’s Mystery Sonatas and Bach’s D minor Chaconne – forms based on repetition – Humphreys appropriately went for meditative eloquence rather than heated display, the chords of the latter beautifully touched while also conveying a sense of free fantasy.
Overall, there was a serenity to the playing that not only masked any technical challenges but also created a compelling, intimate listening experience.
Edward Bhesania
Read: ‘Paganini’s Caprices can actually be fun!’: Violinist Fenella Humphreys
Read: Session Report: violinist Fenella Humphreys and composer Adrian Sutton on a new violin concerto
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