Wighton Cappuccino Concerts

Coffee-house tradition awakens with contemporary twist

Spring 2004 saw Dr Sally Garden's new Cappuccino Concert series launch with excellent response in the heart of Dundee. Patrons of her little concert-cafe in the city's beautiful Marryat Hall enjoy time to chat and relax before the concert begins...

Each of the 3 concerts in this first Saturday morning bi-weekly series explored a different aspect of C19 Dundee merchant Andrew Wighton's diverse music collection •The first, Dowland and the Scots featured Fires of Love ensemble with a programme centred round C16 lutenist and composer John Dowland's First booke of songs and ayres 1597. It also introduced audiences to music from important historical sources associated with the east coast of Scotland, notably the Panmure manuscripts.


	Panmure House (Angus) [demolished 1950s]

•The second concert, Harpsichord heaven! with Edinburgh Barock focussed on the place of the harpsichord and its early keyboard cousins in the drawing-rooms of Enlightenment Scotland.

Alexander Munro's collection of best Scots airs, published Paris 1732

•The final concert in this first series, The morning is charming - music by Mr Handel looked at the role of the anthology in preserving Handel's keyboard music and highly perishable operas in the popular consciousness of Georgian Britain.


	The morning is charming - music by Mr Handel... 'Mr Handel' and three rivalrous 'Italian' singers bring the first series to a close

Designed to raise awareness of the city's important Wighton Collection of music, this informal and fascinating three-concert venture was something of an experiment. It has attracted a steadily-growing audience and it is good to learn that a further series is planned. (Courier 03-05-05)

...the Cappuccino Concert series has proved to be much more significant and ground-breaking than anticipated (Courier 19-04-04)

Forthcoming Cappuccino Concerts
23 April 2005

Fires of Love... an unerring sense of style... most memorable of all was the deeply moving 'Remember me, my deir', an achingly poignant lament sung with great insight and beauty by the soprano Frances Cooper. (Courier 05-04-04)

Edinburgh Barock... one of the best things about this concert was that the players did not try to veneer the music with the kind of sophistication that can so easily deaden it - they allowed it to speak for itself with vigour, gaiety and sometimes sadness... it was enthralling from start to finish. (Courier 19-04-04)

Mr Hawksworth set the tone... with a terrific performance... as bold and forthright as Handel's own playing was by all accounts... Contributions of Sally Garden, Ruth Black and Alison McDonald... brilliant, beautifully characterised, deeply moving... and the love-triangle scena from Orlando... imaginatively realised, vividly projected and stylishly sung. (Courier 03-05-04)