West Wight Arts Association will start the New Year with a recital to be given by mezzo soprano Anna Huntley and pianist James Baillieu on January 10th at the Memorial Hall, Freshwater, starting at 7.00.

The programme will begin with Haydn’s dramatic cantata Arianna a Naxos in which the singer discovers that she has been abandoned on the island of Naxos by Theseus and in her despair asks to die. WWAA will make sure that Wightlink, who sponsor us by providing half price tickets for our musicians, will get Anna and James off the Island.

This will be followed by Schumann’s song cycle Frauenliebe und –Leben (A Woman’s Love and Life) which traces the emotions a woman goes through from first falling in love, marriage, the birth of a child to the death of her husband.

The second half will consist of a selection of light hearted songs by Sullivan, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Stanford, Coates, Bernstein, Kurt Weil and Coward among others.

Tickets at £12.00 (£2.00 students) are available from Totland Parish Office, 756028, [email protected] or from the West Wight Arts Association website www.westwightarts.co.uk or at the door.