Join us in the Victoria Rooms Building for our Lunchtime Concert Series, featuring pianist Duncan Honeybourne.
Duncan Honeybourne enjoys a diverse profile as a pianist and in music education. Reviews have commended his “gripping performances” (The Times), “glittering performances” (International Piano), “fine, sensitive playing” (Gramophone) and “great technical facility and unfailing imagination” (Musical Opinion).
Honeybourne made his debut as concerto soloist at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, and the National Concert Hall, Dublin, in 1998, and gave recital debuts in London, Dublin, Paris and at international festivals in Belgium and Switzerland. Since then he has toured extensively in the UK, Ireland and Europe as solo and lecture recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician, appearing at many major venues and leading festivals. His solo performances have been frequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and more than 20 networks worldwide, including French, Belgian, Austrian, Swiss and German radio, ABC (Australia) and Radio New Zealand. He has premiered over 80 solo piano works written for him by composers including John Joubert, John Casken, Cecilia McDowall and Sadie Harrison, plus the Andrew Downes Piano Concerto at Birmingham Town Hall. Duncan has also revived many forgotten scores by composers of earlier generations and was invited by the BBC to give the world premiere of two rediscovered piano preludes by English romantic composer Susan Spain-Dunk in a live Radio 3 recital from St David’s Hall, Cardiff. Duncan’s extensive discography includes premiere recordings of piano music by Baines, Bainton, Pitfield, Greville Cooke, Christopher Edmunds, Armstrong Gibbs, Walford Davies and Imogen Holst, as well as many contemporary works.
Duncan Honeybourne teaches at the Royal Academy of Music Junior Academy, the University of Southampton and Sherborne School. He has adjudicated and given masterclasses at conservatoires and universities in the UK and Ireland, and has written and published widely on music and musicians. At home in Dorset he is Founder/Artistic Director of Chamber Music Weymouth.
Admission: £6 (£5+VAT) (free for UoB students & staff with valid UCard).
- Pay in advance via the University Online Shop or on the door (card only).
- Advance sales close at 12:00 noon on the day of each concert; after that, tickets are available at the door, subject to availability.
- Doors close at 1:15 pm. No late entry.
- We cannot accept cash payments.
Programme
Mist on the Moors: The Piano Music of Reginald Redman (1892-1972)
Duncan Honeybourne (piano)
A launch recital for Heritage Records HTGCD121, released 13th February 2026
Mist on the Moors
A Cornish Legend
The Mystic Garden
Cradle Song
On the Cornish Coast
The Lonely Faun
Lullaby for a Kitten
From Three Preludes:
- Vent a travers les Roseaux (Wind through the Reeds)
- Le Desert au Point du Jour (The Desert at Dawn)
Song of the Fountain
Welsh Air All Through the Night
Reginald Redman (1892-1972)
Reginald Ernest Redman (known as “Rex” to his family and friends) was born in the London borough of Lambeth on 17th September 1892. But his roots were in the South and West of England, and it was in that region that he established himself as a musician of wide-ranging skill and sympathy. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music, achieving early success with his piece Away on the Hills for strings, which was played by the Guildhall Orchestra and commended by the conductor Sir Landon Ronald. In 1926 he took a BBC post in Cardiff as orchestral pianist and chorus master, working with what was then known as the Cardiff Station Orchestra. Then, when the National Orchestra of Wales was formed in 1928, Redman was promoted to Assistant Music Director and Assistant Conductor. Climbing the career ladder at regular intervals, he later became BBC Music Director for Wales and the West of England; then, in 1936, when the Welsh and Western regions were permanently separated, Reginald Redman moved to Bristol as Director of West of England music. He conducted the BBC Western Studio Orchestra, later rebranded the Westcountry Studio Orchestra and the West of England Light Orchestra, and was musical director of the BBC West of England Singers, for whom he sourced and with whom he championed a large quantity of traditional West Country music. He was Honorary Conductor of the Bristol Symphony Orchestra from 1935, and a regular conductor of the Clifton String Orchestra as well as conducting the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra (later the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra), and the Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra as well as all the BBC orchestras. Redman made many arrangements of West Country folk songs and, on retirement from the BBC, he told the radio correspondent of the Evening World that his main aim had been “to write for the region about the region.” His deep interest in the West of England’s musical heritage, places and people is reflected in a large number of works whose titles and content denote a local inspiration. His deep interest in Chinese music is also evidenced in his musical output. Reginald Redman died in Bristol’s Frenchay Hospital on 9th March 1972, shortly before the projected commemorations for his eightieth birthday. A memorial concert was held at the Bristol church of St Mary Redcliffe on 19th September, and BBC Radio 3 broadcast a programme of his compositions in tribute to Redman in June 1973. Since then his music has been largely forgotten, but his archive remains in the University of Bristol’s Special Collections, to whose staff I am grateful for their support and assistance in the preparation of the CD. I hope that this new recording of Redman’s piano music will encourage further interest in his work and a reassessment of his fascinating legacy and vigorous contribution to musical life in the South West.