Archive for year: 2011

The Samling Foundation provides a wonderful chance for young professional singers and pianists to escape to the beautiful north west for a week and work intensively with various top tutors.  The setting of Farlham Hall (near Brampton, in Cumbria) is absolutely stunning, and we were spoilt rotten there, taking over the place entirely for the week.  The six singers (sopranos Meeta Raval, Eva Ganizate, Jennifer France, mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge, tenor Stephen Chambers, baritone Benjamin Appl) all have exciting burgeoning careers; between them this week they were preparing for roles at ENO, performances in Cardiff Singer of the World, recordings with RSNO, productions across Europe, recitals, auditions… Concurrent sessions with gurus Della Jones, Paul Farrington, Caroline Dowdle and John Mark Ainsley ensured that it was a packed week, not least for pianists Jocelyn Freeman and myself – but it was extremely productive.  Wednesday saw a public masterclass at The Sage in Gateshead, whose smaller recital hall is ideal for sung repertoire.  A fascinated audience received a real insight into the detailed process of preparation for performance, and it was great to see many of them back for the concluding concert, in the same space, on Saturday.  This featured arias and songs from each of the singers, as well as operatic ensemble numbers and excerpts from Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzer involving everyone.  Samling is proud to have ‘accumulated’ 200 Samling Scholars over its 15 years of existence, and it is a privilege to be a part of such a starry lineup.

Currently coaching on RAO’s imminent production of Die Dreigroschenoper (dir. John Ramster, cond. Dominic Wheeler).  This Brecht/Weill tale of poverty and anger presents a completely different musical language for many of the singers, owing much more to the ‘musical’ style and to jazz influences; here it is performed in its original German (keeping the language coach, Gerhard Gall, particularly busy with the many pages of dialogue!).  With many of the opera school’s singers away in the summer term working at Glyndebourne and Garsington, the understudies are largely drawn from the postgrad vocal studies course, so it has been an unexpected chance to work with them too.  Even the early production rehearsals looked very slick and dynamic!  The show opens on Thursday 19^th May in the Sir Jack Lyons Theatre at RAM.

Great buzz at the Wigmore last night for the Ferrier final –  delighted to have played for Marcus Farnsworth, who won the Song Prize.  Congratulations also to Kitty Whately (winner), Jonathan McGovern (second prize) and Tim End (accompanist prize) –  a great evening all round.

What a joy to spend an entire week playing cello music!  This surely is one of the greatest sets of repertoire there is –  composers over the centuries have clearly responded to the richness and intensity of what this instrument offers. Sue Lowe's Cello Gathering courses (known as the Gathering of the Clans!) have built a superb reputation over the years, and manage to offer just the right help and inspiration to all the cellists, whether they are at school, at university, at music college, or out in the world!  As a team with the wonderful other pianists, John Thwaites and JP Ekins, our responsibility was to play for the eight or nine hours of open masterclasses each day, with incredibly inspiring teaching by Pierre Doumenge and Sandy Baillie.  Alongside this we rehearsed with and coached the cellists on the wide range of repertoire they had with them (from Haydn to Elgar to Brahms to Rachmaninov to Barber to Shostakovich… and with a good dose of the current Grade 8 set pieces amongst those at school!).  They also received private lessons from a varied faculty of teachers (Sue Lowe, Anna Shuttleworth, Matthew Lowe), baroque input from Charles Medlam, classes with William Bruce, and Alexander Technique from Vivien Mackie and Clare Finzi, all in the stunning setting of Bryanston School.  Many congratulations to Sue on running such a successful course yet again.