Jennifer France (Image: Pablo Strong Photography)Jennifer France and Lana Bode
'Still I Think Alive'
(Event 1: Fri 2 Oct 2026 8.00pm Little Missenden Church)
Jennifer France (soprano) and Lana Bode (piano)
Fanny Mendelssohn There be none of Beauty’s Daughters
Felix Mendelssohn Suleika op34 no4
Libby Larsen Jane Seymour (from Try Me Good King); Marriage…Divorce (from Me [Brenda Ueland]); When I am an Old Woman
Rebecca Clarke Infant Joy; One That Is Ever Kind
Amy Beach In the Twilight; Cradle Song of the Lonely Mother (piano solo)
Kaija Saariaho Sua katselen (from Leino Songs)
Judith Weir Breasts!! Song of the Innocent Wild Child; The Mothership: When a Good Mother Sails From This World
Diana Burrell Love Song
Robert Schumann Er, der Herrlichste von allen (from Frauenliebe und -leben)
Clara Schumann Die stille Lotosblume
Emma-Ruth Richards ‘Still I Think Alive’ (Festival commission and premiere)
Programme Notes will be available for download here and free at concert
The Festival’s delighted this year to be able to commission a new 20-minute song cycle by the young British composer Emma-Ruth Richards, Still I Think Alive. The five songs, with texts by poet Kate Wakeling, explore modern motherhood in many of its contradictions, moving (as she puts it) ‘between moments of wonder, exhaustion, joy, overwhelm and absurdity’. It is a co-commission by the Little Missenden Festival and the Royal Philharmonic Society, with a grant from the RPS Thea Musgrave Fund, and the Marchus Trust, Vaughan Williams Foundation, and Francis Routh Trust.
The many and various songs in the remainder of the programme together constitute a wonderful musical summary of the changes in both society’s and women’s own attitudes towards what it means to be a woman.
A previous Emerging Artist at Scottish Opera, Jennifer France was winner of the 2018 Critics’ Circle Emerging Talent Award and was described by WhatsOnStage as ‘the living jewel in opera’s crown’. This year she returns to the Royal Opera House as First Niece in Peter Grimes and to Garsington as Cecily Cardew in Gerald Barry's opera of The Importance of Being Earnest.
askonasholt.com/artist/jennifer-france
Lana Bode is an American-British pianist, educator and artist producer, whose performances have been hailed as ‘expertly calibrated’ (BBC Music Magazine) and ‘deeply examined’ (Gramophone). An acclaimed and in-demand recitalist and champion of new music, she’s frequently heard on BBC Radio 3.
Lana Bode (Image: Marshall Light Studio)
Born in 1985, Emma-Ruth Richards’ deeply expressive and highly charged music has been championed by many ensembles and soloists in the UK and internationally. Her work’s been described as “accomplished” (The Times), and “simply beautiful” (Opera North, Bachtrack). Still I Think Alive has also received generous funding from the RPS Thea Musgrave Composer Fund, Marchus Trust, Vaughan Williams Foundation, and Francis Routh Trust as well as from the Festival itself.
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