The premiere of Unavoidable Happenings, a song cycle on the poetry of Anthony Burgess by Canadian composer and pianist Michael Rose.

The work speaks, with some of Burgess’s trademark humour, of scenes of life over which is cast the shadow of entropy. It is an exploration of life’s unavoidable happenings – and inevitable decay.

Pianist Michael is joined by fellow Canadians Betty Allison, soprano, and Richard Cook, clarinetist. Anthony Burgess’s Bösendorfer will be used for this performance.

Doors 2pm | Concert 2.30pm | Tickets £12 on the door, £10 advance, £8 concessions

About the performers

Dr. Betty Allison is a soprano, teaching artist, and Professor of Voice at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. A graduate of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, she has performed more than forty operatic roles and brings nearly two decades of experience as a recitalist and chamber musician.

Her work bridges performance, pedagogy, and research, with a particular focus on singing, wellness, and artistic sustainability. Allison’s research investigates how collaborative practices and supportive teaching models can help sustain healthy and resilient singing careers. She is also preparing a new edition of songs by nineteenth century composer Julie Baroni Cavalcabó, helping to return this rarely heard songs to the concert stage.

Michael Rose, pianist, vocal coach, writer, and composer, has performed in concert with many of Canada’s finest artists and has enjoyed a long association with several leading arts organizations including Toronto’s Opera in Concert and Toronto Operetta Theatre.

Michael’s compositions have been heard in concert across Canada. He has written the librettos and music for three full-length operas. His latest, A Northern Lights Dream, received its premiere by Toronto Operetta Theatre in May 2022 and has since been performed in Halifax and Saskatoon.

Michael lives by the sea in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where he is currently working on several sets of songs.

Richard Cook returned to playing the clarinet after an over 40-year absence when he retired from a busy administrative career. The need to play music and inspire composers by commissioning works motivated him to return to practicing the instrument he loved in his early 20’s.

He has retired from a long and interesting career as an educator, arts administrator and fundraiser. He served as Dean of the Centre for Arts and Communications at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, and was previously Board Chair of Edmonton Opera as well as Interim General Director of the same company.

His love of music, the voice and the clarinet inspired Richard to commission this work from Canadian composer Michael Rose.

About Anthony Burgess

Anthony Burgess is best known as a novelist and composer. He took great pride in writing poetry too. He published his first poems as a teenager in college magazine Electron, and went on to pen hundreds of poems throughout his life, from epic poems to music lyrics. His final work was Byrne, a verse novel published two years after his death.

In 2020, Carcanet Publishing released Collected Poems, edited by Jonathan Mann. This was the biggest volume of Burgess’s poetry, and included translations from the Roman poet Belli and the full text of his verse novel Moses.