Sunday 7 November 3.00 pm

Christopher Kent (actor)
Gamal Khamis (piano)

Works for speaker and piano by Richard Strauss.

Enoch Arden, op 38 based on the epic poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (60')

The Castle by the Sea, by Ludwig Uhland, in a new translation by Christopher Kent (5')

Christopher Kent and Gamal Khamis return to St Mary's following their previous acclaimed narrative recitals Never Such Innocence (2018) and Odyssey (2019) to repeat their performance of Strauss's Enoch Arden, first seen as a livestream from St Mary's in November 2020. They have since performed it to rave reviews at London's Jermyn Street Theatre and the 2021 Three Choirs Festival, as well as recording it for CD release by SOMM Recording in Spring 2022.

Enoch Arden is a hidden gem of the romantic repertoire: a narrative poem originally written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in 1864 and set by Richard Strauss for speaker and piano in 1897. Although Strauss performed it widely himself with the actor Ernst von Possart at the time, it has been heard infrequently since, despite advocacy from such notable figures as Glenn Gould, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Patrick Stewart.

Enoch Arden tells the story of three childhood friends who grow up in a remote fishing village. Enoch becomes a sailor, marries his sweetheart Annie and then sets off on a long voyage from which he never returns. After many years Philip, the third member of the childhood trio, comes to Annie and makes her an offer. So what does Annie do? And where is Enoch? What happens next is both stirringly dramatic and agonisingly tender. With words and music of haunting beauty, Enoch Arden is a masterwork of the now almost lost genre of musical melodrama.

At this performance Christopher and Gamal will also present the world premiere in English of Christopher's own translation of another much shorter Strauss work called The Castle by the Sea , a setting of Ludwig Uhland's brief and mythical romantic poem of lost love , which is also included on their forthcoming CD.

Christopher Kent has appeared on stage, screen and radio in a wide range of roles from Shakespeare to contemporary drama. London theatre appearances have included Cyrano de Bergerac with Robert Lindsay at the Theatre Royal Haymarket and The Government Inspector with Timothy Spall at Greenwich Theatre. He is also one of the UK's best-known voiceover actors and his voice is regularly heard on commercials, documentaries, film trailers and literary recordings. Recent concert work includes collaborations with the Bridge String Quartet, West London Sinfonia and the Voice of God in Britten's Noye's Fludde.

Gamal Khamis gained a degree in Mathematics at Imperial College London and completed his formal musical education at the Royal College of Music. He first performed at the Wigmore Hall at the age of 10 and has since appeared at most of the major U.K. concert halls, across Europe, North America and Australasia, and on BBC television and radio. Gamal has won major awards for both solo and collaborative piano playing, including at the Royal Over-Seas League and the Ferrier Awards. He is an Artist with the Concordia Foundation, Royal Over-Seas League, Park Lane Group and Samling, and is a member of the Lipatti Piano Quartet.

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