Jill Kemp - Recorders

Jill Kemp, despite her youth, has been described as one of the four best recorder players in the world.

She had the audience gasping at the virtuosity of her playing. She was perfectly at home with all her instruments, from the tiny sopranino recorder, barely six inches long, which produces sounds only just within the range of the human ear, to the big brown bass recorder, the size and robustness of a bassoon. Sometimes Jill played chords on two recorders at a time, an amazing feat.

The musicians played a wide variety of music, from the baroque (Bach, Handel, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons), to more modern works including a jazz piece by Maute (Once There Was a Child), a Rubbra Lament and the most substantial work of the afternoon, a sonata by York Bowen written in the 1940s.

Particularly popular with the audience were Les Echos des Bois by Damaré, with the uncannily realistic twittering birds, and the amazingly virtuoso Introduction and Variations Brillantes by Krähmer.

The pianist Helen Reid provided the perfect foil to the recorder player with her sensitive, sympathetic and technically brilliant piano playing. Both players looked gorgeous with their long blonde hair and pretty dresses...

I am sure we shall hear more of Jill Kemp and Helen Reid.

Janet Ferrett, Dorset Echo, 15th February 2007