Review by Patrick Wynne-Jones published in The Resident, 23 March 2012

Last Friday evening Horsham’s Drill Hall on Denne Road resounded, not to marching feet, but to the pure and delicate sound of the orchestral harp.

In a recital sponsored by the Countess of Munster Trust and organised by The Horsham Music Circle in its 70th anniversary season, rising young star Mélissa Kenny gave a virtuoso performance on the evocative instrument.

Of English and French parentage, recipient of the Leverhulme Trust Orchestral Mentorship Scholarship and trained both at Toulouse-le Mirail University and at Greenwich’s Trinity Leban Conservatoire, Ms Kenny’s repertoire was as international as her professional background.

The programme included works by Austria-based Englishman Elias Parish-Alvars (billed in his day as ‘The Liszt of the Harp’), a musical meditation on the ruined Bamyan Buddist statues in Afghanistan by French composer Philippe Hersant, Claude Debussy’s movingly lyrical ‘Premiére Arabesque’, works by German and Spanish composers Louis Spohr and Manuel de Falla and Russian composer Ekaterina Walter- Küne’s haunting ‘Fantasy on Themes from the Opera Eugene Onegin’.

Appreciation is due to the Countess of Munster Musical Trust Recital Scheme for the funding which made it possible for a Horsham audience to experience the work of this remarkably talented young musician.

Ms Kenny’s recital was part of the Horsham Music Circle’s 2012 programme.
For more information visit www.horsham-music-circle.org.uk