Fantasia Orchestra
Tom Fetherstonhaugh
Elizabeth Watts
Smith Square Hall, 23 November 2025
Subtitled “Birdsong,” this miscellany concert was loosely predicated on avian inspiration across several centuries. And, considering that soprano Elizabeth Watts was dep-ing for the indisposed Lucy Crowe at less than 24 hours notice, it was remarkably slick. Of course there were one or two changes to the original programme but on the whole it ran as advertised with plenty of youthful freshness from Tom Fetherstonhaugh (still only 26) and the orchestra he founded in 2016.
Messiaen was inevitably in the mix. You could hardly have a bird-themed concert without him. His The Lovebird of the Star from Harawi (1946), arranged by Harry Baker is a richly textural piece in which, performed here without voice, we could really hear and enjoy Jaymee Coonjobeeharry’s birdlike piccolo interjections over lush orchestral chords. Then, Coonjobeeharry moved to the front of the stage with his flute to duet with Watts in Handel’s “Sweet Bird”. I loved the warm way she looked at him, smilingly. It almost convinced me that she, and we, really could hear a delightful bird.
Dove Sono from The Marriage of Figaro happens to be my favourite aria from any Mozart Opera and Watts more than did it justice. Her rendering was nuanced and full of dramatic passion and rubato and I admired her elegant attention to the decoration in the recap. She also gave us a moving and engaging account of Spring from Strauss’s Four Last Songs along with several other numbers ending, as her encore, with the crowd-pleasing A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square with Braimah Kanneh-Mason creating the nightingale on violin. Kanneh-Mason had opened the concert with Spring from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, decently enough performed.
Many composers have very effectively evoked the sea in their music: Mendelssohn, Debussy and Britten to name but three. This concert gave us the London premiere of Blasio Kavuma’s I am the Sea, commissioned by Fantasia for a festival earlier this year. It’s effectively a mini concerto for two violins, viola and oboe. Full of moody, mysteriousness it culminates in bird-like horn grunts and string glissandi. Whether you would spot the marine and avian references without the title and programme note is doubtful.
The longest and most substantial piece is this concert was Haydn’s Symphony No 83 which came immediately after the interval. It was an enjoyable performance in which Fettherstonhaugh leaned so pointedly on the violin “clucking” in the opening movement that the audience chuckled palpably. Of course Haydn’s mind wasn’t really on poultry coops in 1785. The symphony’s nickname “The Hen” dates from the nineteenth century but it’s fun either way and I especially admired the orchestra’s account of the gloriously classical minuet and trio which they packed full of colour.
This pleasant concert was the first of four in Fantasia Orchestra’s new residency at Smith Square Hall. Its sparky personality counterpoints nicely with the grandiose Corinthian pillars.
