Music of the Fuchsia

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The cabaret style and creative flair of Rosemary Forbes-Butler and Paul Ayres combine to bring you a refreshingly new musical experience. They let loose their fertile imaginations, with inspirational and entertaining results. Purcell, Weill, Handel, Sondheim, McCartney & Lennon, Britten, Gibbons, Gershwin, Messiaen, Sweelinck, folksong, poetry… they all receive the Music of the Fuchsia treatment.

Rosemary Forbes-Butler has concentrated on early and contemporary music and has had a substantial number of new works written for her. She has a vocal ensemble Rosy Voices and has toured in Europe with the Hilliard Ensemble. She performed the role of Titania from Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Spoleto Festival under Richard Hickox, has sung Satie's Socrate with John Tilbury at the Conway Hall and was a guest soloist for the Alan Bush centenary concert at the Wigmore Hall. She has performed and recorded on television, radio, for the Royal Opera House and London Sinfonietta Voices, and on the soundtracks Moulin Rouge, Treasure Planet, Romeo+Juliet and (featuring her kazoo debut) Chicken Run.

Paul Ayres, first class Oxford graduate and finalist in the first BBC Young Composer of the Year award, works as a freelance musician. His music is has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM and mp3.com, and is published in Canada, USA and the UK. His career as a concert organist has taken him to a large number of cathedrals across Europe, North America and Australasia, and his solo CD Passacaglia has received many favourable reviews. Other projects in his musical life have included arranging Meatloaf's Bat out of Hell for boy chorister & organ for BBCtv, accompanying Radio 4's Daily Service, playing piano for improvised comedy shows in fringe theatres, being one of the National Lottery-funded 1000 artists in 1000 places creating a new musical for a primary school, and playing the organ for Christmas carols at the Royal Albert Hall.