O Moon of Alabama

Mary Carewe and Walter van Dyk get under the skin of Weill’s creations, bringing you this bewitching compilation of songs from some of his most popular works in “O Moon of Alabama: A Kurt Weill Cabaret’’. Joined by a quartet of musicians led by international soloist Anthony Marwood, they encompass not only the Brecht-Weill era of 1920’s Berlin but also the more upbeat and nostalgic songs from his Broadway period.

Joanna Lumley comments: “O Moon of Alabama is an entrancing show, the evening was an unmitigated triumph. The songs are performed with beauty and skill, heartbreaking, scary, funny in turn. I was bewitched throughout. This is what cabaret should be!”

PROGRAMME

Kurt Weill (1900–1950)
O Moon of Alabama: A Kurt Weill Cabaret (arr. Michael Haslam) [60’]

Overture
Mack the Knife
Barbara Song
Liebeslied
Tango Ballad
from The Threepenny Opera
Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht

Alabama Song
from Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht

Pirate Jenny
from The Threepenny Opera

My Ship
from Lady in the Dark
Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin

September Song
from Knickerbocker Holiday
Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson

That’s Him
from One Touch of Venus
Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash

Tchaikovsky (and Other Russians)
from Lady in the Dark

Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed
from Street Scene
Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes

Surabaya-Johnny
from Happy End
Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht

Lonely House
from Street Scene

The Saga of Jenny
from Lady in the Dark

Bilbao Song
from Happy End

DURATION
Approximately one hour without an interval.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

MARY CAREWE
Actor / Singer

Mary Carewe is one of the most accomplished and versatile concert and recording artists in the UK.

A dynamic stage performer, Mary has been invited to sing around the world including at New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s The Royal Albert and Royal Festival Halls, Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Berlin Philharmonie and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw with conductors Simon Rattle, Kurt Masur, Carl Davis and John Wilson. Her repertoire ranges from James Bond themes and Broadway showstoppers to the glamour of classic Hollywood and Berlin cabaret and her eclectic recital programmes delve into the world of theatre, art songs, pop music and jazz.

She recorded Life Story by Thomas Adès with the composer at the piano for EMI and features on the classical chart-topping CDs Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary and Cantata Mundi by composer Karl Jenkins. Other CD releases include a collaboration of Gershwin songs (A Crush on You) arranged for string orchestra and piano by Australian pianist/arranger Philip Mayers with
whom she has also released two solo CDs of cabaret material. Additionally, she appears on a variety of recordings for Naxos, Chandos, Silva Screen, NMC and Universal of contemporary classical material, film, pop and theatre songs.

As a studio singer she regularly records movie soundtracks, including the recent release of The Little Mermaid, Cruella, Mary Poppins Returns and The Hobbit series, TV shows and theme tunes including French and Saunders, Benidorm and Vera, CD backing vocals for artists such as STEPS, Eric Clapton and Bing Crosby as well as multiple radio broadcasts for BBC Radio and TV jingles.

Mary trained in musical theatre at London’s Arts Ed and was in the original West End casts of Starlight Express, Grease (revival 1993) and Saturday Night Fever as well as Cole Porter’s A Swell Party and revues of Stephen Sondheim and Rodgers and Hart at London’s Cadogan Hall.

WALTER VAN DYK
Actor / Singer

Walter van Dyk can currently be seen as Mr. Croiset in the new BBC1 series Steeltown Murders, and most recently in The Gold on BBC1 starring Hugh Bonneville. He recently played opposite Jodie Foster in The Mauritanian, and A Banquet with Lindsay Duncan. Other film and TV includes: Incognito, The Eagle, The Carrier, Around the World in 80 Days, The Detectives, The Professionals, Birds of a Feather, Framed, London’s Burning, Love Hurts, Harley and the Davidsons, and Can’t Stop Me Dreaming. Theatre in the UK includes: A Flea in Her Ear (Old Vic), Enter the Guardsman (Donmar Warehouse), The Importance of Being Earnest (Rose Theatre, Kingston), Absurd Person Singular, Arms and the Man, Equally Divided (Watford Palace Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Two Gentlemen of Verona, High Society (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park), O Moon of Alabama: A Kurt Weill Cabaret (Young Vic), Insufficiency (Riverside Studios), The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs (Salisbury Playhouse), Sweeney Todd (Theatre Clywd), Pacific Overtures (Leicester Haymarket), The Secret Diary of Samuel Pepys (Theatre Royal, Brighton), Deathtrap (English Theatre Frankfurt), What Now Little Man (Greenwich Theatre), Threepenny Opera (Richmond Theatre), A Doll’s House (International Theatre of Amsterdam).

He recently performed at Garsington Opera playing the Haushofmeister in Ariadne auf Naxos, and with Angela Hewitt and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Trasimeno Music Festival Italy in Poulenc’s L’Histoire du Babar and Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat. As narrator he has performed with orchestras such as the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Irish Chamber Orchestra, and at the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival, Lincolnshire International Chamber Music Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Cheltenham International Music Festival, Music for Salem in NY, Yellow Barn Music Festival in Vermont, and Portland Chamber Music Festival in Maine.

ANTHONY MARWOOD
Violin

Anthony Marwood enjoys a wide-ranging international career as soloist, director and chamber musician. Recent solo engagements include performances with the Boston Symphony, St Louis Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, New World Symphony, London Philharmonic, Spanish National Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony and Sydney Symphony. He has worked with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Sir Andrew Davis, Thomas Søndergård, David Robertson, Andrew Manze, Nicholas Carter, Ryan Bancroft, Ilan Volkov, Jaime Martin and Douglas Boyd.

As director and soloist Anthony has close relationships with many of the leading chamber orchestras, including the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Les Violons du Roy, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Current engagements include a tour with the Trondheim Soloists; a return to Madrid with the Spanish National Orchestra; two tours of Australia including return visits to the Adelaide Symphony (Korngold Concerto), the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Australian National Academy of Music; performances at La Jolla SummerFest in California; performing as soloist/director with Les Violons du Roy in Canada and with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra; and two separate concerto projects with the Hallé Orchestra. He will also undertake two concert series at the Wigmore Hall in London.

He recently received great acclaim for his performance of the Ligeti Violin Concerto conducted by Thomas Adès at the Tanglewood Festival. ‘None could outshine special guest Anthony Marwood, the featured soloist. This concerto demands Olympian-calibre endurance from its soloist, and Marwood surely would have run away with the gold. Marwood’s violin dug deep through double stops and soared high with angelic resonance. The orchestra’s fellows sharing my row were on their feet, cheering at full blast. They knew excellence when they heard it.’ (The Boston Globe)

Many leading composers have written concertos for him, including Thomas Adès (Anthony also made the first recording
of the work, for EMI), Steven Mackey, Sally Beamish and Samuel Carl Adams. Anthony is a prolific recording artist, and his most recent release – his 50th on the Hyperion label – is a recording of Walton’s Violin Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins. The disc received wide critical acclaim, including a 5-star review in the Guardian and a ‘Recommended Recording’ in The Strad magazine, whilst the Sunday Times described him as ‘a thrilling, virtuosic soloist’.

Anthony studied with Emanuel Hurwitz and David Takeno in London. His regular chamber music partners include Aleksandar Madžar, Dénes Várjon, Alexander Melnikov, James Crabb and Steven Isserlis. He has collaborated with numerous actors, Indian classical dancer Mayuri Boonham, Irish singer-songwriter Sinead O’Connor, sculptress Nicole Farhi and South African guitarist Derek Gripper. He was the violinist of the Florestan Trio for sixteen years and won the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award in 2006.

Anthony, who resides in Sussex and Amsterdam, is co-Artistic Director of the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival in East Sussex, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2023. He performs every July at the Yellow Barn Festival in Vermont and enjoys a close association with the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne. He was appointed an MBE in the 2018 Queen’s New Year’s Honours List and was made a Fellow of the Guildhall School of Music in 2013. In 2022, alongside Lawrence Power, he was appointed William Lawes Chair of Chamber Music at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

He uses a bow by Joseph René LaFleur and plays a 1736 Carlo Bergonzi violin, kindly bought by a syndicate of purchasers, and a 2018 violin made by Christian Bayon.