A NEW York-based musical ensemble Mirror Visions perform their animal-themed concert ‘Of Beasts and Brutes’ in Welshpool next week as part of their European tour.

Taking place at the Methodist Church on Thursday, January 17, it is the third in the Welshpool Music Club season.

After successful events in 2018, the club starts the New Year with something very different. The club is honoured to have this American ensemble appearing in the Welsh borders.

Founded 27 years ago from a desire to explore the relationship between words and music, initially through the creation of ‘mirror visions’ - settings of the same text to music by different composers - the group’s passion for storytelling has delighted audiences with their thematic concerts on surprising subjects, based on scholarly research and laced with humour.

Featuring soprano, tenor, baritone and piano, their programme will take the audience on an imaginative journey through song, showcasing both well-known and neglected pieces by composers familiar and new, set to texts by poets and historical figures that encompass both prose and poetry, correspondence and other anecdotes.

‘Of Beasts and Brutes’ promises an evening of song that playfully and seriously explores the animalizing that can arise under the sway of beasts both animal and human.

Featuring three Mirror Visions’ original commissions, the programme also includes music from Handel, Tchaikovsky, Poulenc and more than a dozen other composers, and setting words from authors, poets and historical figures ranging from Julius Caesar to Ogden Nash!

The concert is at 7.30pm. Entry is free for music club members: for non-members the charge is £10 (students £2) and tickets will be available at the door.

Tea/coffee and biscuits are available after the performance when there is an opportunity to meet the musicians.

The music club has two more concerts this season, with the Piatti Quartet, one of the UK’s leading young string quartets, on Thursday, February 21; and ‘The Instrument of the Devil’ exploration of the clarinet family and some of its repertoire, on Thursday, March 14.