They plan a meeting between Padmore and Szymanski in the Nezahualcóyotl Room

A voice and guitar recital, which will include works by John Dowland, Benjamin Britten, Alec Roth and Franz Schubert, will bring together the British tenor Mark Padmore and the Mexican guitarist Morgan Szymanski next Friday, November 17, at 8:00 p.m., in the Nezahualcóyotl Room of the University Cultural Center.

I have wanted to come to Mexico for a long time, to visit and play with Morgan Szymanski, for me this recital is very important. I was here 40 years ago, on a British Council tour, and I've wanted to come back ever since,” he told Excelsior tenor Mark Padmore, who has sung with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony and has received invitations from Wigmore Hall, the Royal Opera House and London's Covent Garden.

Furthermore, he assured that this concert "represents my debut as a soloist in Mexico, in the company of Morgan, for which we have chosen a repertoire that begins with the theme of the Elizabethan tradition, with songs that used to be accompanied by the lute."

Padmore detailed that the first half of the recital will include music from Dowland's time, but also from Britten, who wrote lute songs inspired by the period of Queen Elizabeth I, celebrating Queen Elizabeth II, with her opera Gloriana.

WE RECOMMEND YOU: A virtuous season by Morgan Szymanski

As well as some songs by Alec Roth, especially from his cycle My Lute and I, "based on the poems of Thomas Wyatt, who is from the period of Henry VIII and was Anne Boleyn's lover."

For the second half of the recital, the tenor explained, “we will have songs by Schubert, who lived in Vienna at the beginning of the 19th century, and wrote around 900 songs that were frequently performed with guitar accompaniment, and we will also perform more songs by Roth and we end the program with a selection of British folk songs.”

The British tenor assured that the selection of these composers “demonstrates a similarity in the art of song: from the time of Shakespeare to the 19th century, with Schubert, and the contemporary songs of Benjamin Britten and Alec Roth, what we do with the song – as Yip Harburg postulated – is trying to communicate thoughts so that the public can feel the lyrics of the songs.”

And he explained that in this presentation they will premiere in our country a series of works by Roth – composed for Padmore and Szymanski –, such as the cycle Songs in time of war and chinese gardensinspired by the poems of Vikram Seth and the Chinese gardens in Vancouver, which are replicas of the imperial gardens in Suzhou.

Finally, Szymanski expressed that “after more than 15 years of working with Mark in the United Kingdom, I am very pleased that we can present the fruits of our collaboration in Mexico for the first time in this concert.”

cva