Shipston Song 2023 festival programme

I sang it under the wild wood tree…

Schedule Friday 3pm – 5pm

Masterclass with Helen Charlston nb: taking place in Abingdon House, Swalcliffe

7pm – 8.30pm

CONCERT ONE Boyhood’s End

Saturday 2pm – 4pm

Masterclass with Roderick Williams

7pm – 8.30pm

CONCERT TWO Songs of a Wayfarer

Sunday 11am – 1pm

Masterclass with Ian Tindale

3.30pm – 5.00pm

CONCERT THREE The Elements

Photography: Ruth Atkinson – Ian Tindale

Julian Guidera – Dafydd Jones

Ben McKee – Helen Charlston

Benjamin Reason – Laurence Kilsby

Theo Williams – Roderick Williams

Monika Tomiczek – Dr Leah Broad

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Shipston Song 2023

shipstonsong.co.uk

shipstonsong@gmail.com @shipston_song

@shipston_song

Our Supporters

Shipston Song 2023 would not be possible without the support of several organisations and individuals who have given generously to bring our festival to fruition. We extend particular thanks to:

• Nicholas Boas Trust (Shipston Song Rising Stars)

• Finzi Friends (‘The Elements’ programme)

• Gini & Richard Gabbertas

• John & Julia Melvin

• A lice Stagg

• James & Linda Synge

We would also like to thank our Festival Manager Caroline Daggett, Madeleine and John Tattersall for hosting our Rising Stars, and David and Christian for allowing use of their Music Room and house for the duration of the festival.

Welcome

I’m delighted to be able to welcome you to Shipston Song 2023. The joy of Shipston Song is the chance to experience performances in the seclusion and peace of this place, in a uniquely intimate venue which connects performers to our brilliant audience. I’m thrilled to welcome world-class artists to share their talent here. This year our theme takes us far and wide on the subject of nature and humanity’s place in it. Within that theme, I’m excited that we’ve created a programme of recitals which equally represents male and female composers throughout history; you can read more about some of the more unknown individuals in the following essay by lecturer and author Dr Leah Broad. This year also sees an expanded provision for our Rising Stars, all four of whom will perform in masterclasses as well as in recitals during the weekend, and in 2023 we are also proud to feature more new compositions (from the last five years), including a world premiere by Anna Semple.

Poetry and music come together in a particularly direct way in the music we are immersed in this weekend. I hope that in the songs you will hear about the natural world, in seven different languages, by more than twenty composers spanning the past three hundred years, you feel welcomed into this musical microcosm that we are so passionate about.

Ian Tindale Artistic Director Ian Tindale

CONCERT ONE

Boyhood’s End

7pm, Friday 22 September

We are marking the 25th anniversary of Michael Tippett’s death, and 150 years since the birth of Sergey Rachmaninoff in this evening of contrasts. Nostalgia for lost innocence conflicts with awakened desires and new experiences as we traverse folksong, baroque reimaginings and the sumptuousness of Romantic Russia and France.

Laurence Kilsby — tenor

Henna Mun — soprano Shipston Song Rising Star

Ian Tindale — piano

Sweeter than Roses Henry Purcell arr. Tippett

Mad Bess Henry Purcell arr. Britten

Boyhood’s End Michael Tippett

The Little Island (Op.14 no.2) Sergey Rachmaninoff

Twilight (Op.21 no.3) Sergey Rachmaninoff

A passing breeze (Op.34 no.4) Sergey Rachmaninoff

Vocalise (Op.34 no.14) Sergey Rachmaninoff

L’été Cécile Chaminade

Clairières dans le ciel Lili Boulanger

Vous m’avez regardé

Au pied de mon lit Parce que j’ai souffert

J’ai frappé Nadia Boulanger

Versailles Nadia Boulanger

Cantique Nadia Boulanger

Chanson (Elle a vendu mon coeur) Nadia Boulanger

French Folksongs trad. arr. Britten

La belle est au jardin d’amour

Il est quelqu’un sur terre

Rosemary Lane trad. arr. Josephine Stephenson

British Folksongs trad. arr. Britten

The Ash Grove

The Plough Boy

Laurence Kilsby Henna Mun

CONCERT TWO Songs of a Wayfarer

7pm, Saturday 23 September

Gustav Mahler’s iconic ‘Songs of a wayfarer’ sits at the heart of a programme exploring isolation, displacement and loneliness. We hear music from the landscapes of America and Scandinavia, Fanny Hensel’s often joyful songs of travel, and darker music by Mahler’s wife Alma Schindler. We are also given the chance to revisit our own isolation and the strangeness of lockdowns in works commissioned for Helen Charlston’s own ‘Isolation Songbook’.

Helen Charlston — mezzo soprano

Sam Hird — baritone Shipston Song Rising Star

Ian Tindale — piano

Nach Suden (Op.10 no.1) Fanny Hensel

Vorwurf (Op.10 no.2) Fanny Hensel

Im Herbste (Op.10 no.4) Fanny Hensel

Bergeslust (Op.10 no.5) Fanny Hensel

Vandaren (Op.26 no.1) Wilhelm Stenhammar

En strandvisa (Op.26 no.9) Wilhelm Stenhammar

I lönnens skymning (Op.37 no.2) Wilhelm Stenhammar

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen Gustav Mahler

Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht

Ging heut Morgen über’s Feld

Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer

D ie zwei blauen Augen

CONCERT THREE The Elements

3.30pm, Sunday 24 September

Earth, water, air and fire are the pillars of this programme of familiar and unfamiliar song from the British Isles, culminating in excerpts from Gerald Finzi’s evergreen ‘Earth and air and rain’. A world premiere by Anna Semple complete’s Finzi’s work, associating fire with a world of witchcraft and punishment.

Roderick Williams — baritone

Ich wandle unter Blumen (Fünf Lieder)

A lma Schindler-Mahler

Volkslied Clara Schumann

Ich stand in dunkeln Träumen (Op.13 no.1) Clara Schumann

Licht in der Nacht (Vier Lieder)

A lma Schindler-Mahler

Ansturm (Vier Lieder) Alma Schindler-Mahler

Mein Stern Clara Schumann

Lemady trad. arr. Britten

Early stroll songs Richard Barnard

Early Stroll 28.3.20

Early Stroll 29/30.3.20

Early Stroll 31.5.20

Nature is returning Joshua Borin

Cloths of Heaven Dilys Elwyn-Edwards

Ah, Love, but a Day (Op.44 no.2) Amy Beach

The Year’s at the Spring (Op.44 no.1) Amy Beach

Dafydd Jones — tenor Shipston Song Rising Star

Francesca Lauri — piano Shipston Song Rising Star

Ian Tindale — piano

Songs for Ariel Michael Tippett

Come unto these yellow sands

Full Fathom Five

W here the bee sucks

Song of Enchantment Ina Boyle

Green Rain Joan Trimble

The Mill-Water Ina Boyle

My Grief on the Sea Joan Trimble

Joy of Earth Ina Boyle

Fire Anna Semple (world premiere) In Primis Ashes

Maleficium Fire

Epilogue/Chorale

Mae hiraeth yn y môr Dilys Elwyn-Edwards

Hungry Waters Francis George Scott

Lethe Rebecca Clarke

The Seal Man Rebecca Clarke

The Watermill Ralph Vaughan Williams

When Icicles Hang by the Wall

R alph Vaughan Williams

The Sky above the Roof Ralph Vaughan Williams

From Earth and Air and Rain Gerald Finzi

Su mmer Schemes

Waiting Both

The Phantom In a Churchyard

Proud Songsters

Please join us for refreshments in the courtyard afterwards.

Helen Charlston Francesca Lauri

Roderick Williams Dafydd Jones Sam Hird

Singing the Unsung

Dr Leah Broad

When the majority of composers on this festival programme were alive, it was thought not just improbable but biologically impossible for women to compose.

Music, so the argument went, was unique among the art forms because it required a combination of both abstract logic and emotional intelligence. While it was thought that women were capable of the latter, abstract logic was simply beyond them. It therefore made sense, to the Victorian mind, that women would not become “great” composers. After all, as The Musical Times put it in 1887, ‘no one would deny that the average capacity of women is enormously less than the average capacity of men.’

The exception to this rule was songs. Women were encouraged to sing and play the piano to improve their eligibility, so if they were going to compose in any area, song was the most socially acceptable (even though women composing songs professionally was still contentious). So compose they did, becoming some of the most popular songwriters of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Cécile Chaminade (18571944) was so successful that Morny launched a perfume named after her, her portrait was used to sell Wills’s cigarette boxes, and she eventually became the first woman composer to be awarded the Légion d’Honneur.

Many of the women whose music is being performed at Shipston are now remembered for being the “first” woman to achieve something:

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918) was the first to win the Prix de Rome prize for composition, Amy Beach (1867-1944) was the first American woman to write a symphony, Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) was one of the first women hired into a professional orchestra in London.

But structuring our history around “firsts” obscures the long history of precedents and predecessors that allowed these breakthroughs to happen. Lili, for example, may have been the first woman to win the prestigious Prix de Rome, but the pathway to success was paved by other composing women such as her sister Nadia (18871979). Nadia competed for the prize before Lili and won second place in 1908, helping to normalise the idea that women could and should be taken seriously as composers. “Firsts” didn’t appear out of thin air, but built on the work of other women.

Nor does a history of “firsts” tell us much about the quality of the music. Beach may have been the first American woman to write a symphony, but was it any good? If nothing else, a composer’s success in their own lifetime tells us that their music was admired at the time. Chaminade sold no fewer than five million copies of her piano piece Scarf Dance, a considerable feat today, let alone in the nineteenth century. Sadly, though, women’s music often suffered from considerable posthumous neglect which made it difficult to evaluate the quality of their work. Sometimes, as for Fanny Hensel (1805-1847), very little of their music was published so it could not be performed. Or styles went out of fashion, as with Chaminade. Most importantly, though, women composers were portrayed as novelties and “one-offs” whose sex made them worthy of some curious kind of celebrity, rather than creative artists whose works deserved repeat performances. When they died, therefore, their works usually died with them.

Thankfully, there is now considerable energy behind programming and recording works by women so we can make up our own minds about their music. Clara Schumann (1819-1896) has received particular attention, with her piano works recently being widely recorded.

A child prodigy, Clara was already famous as a concert pianist by the time she married Robert, and her advocacy helped his music to enter the standard piano repertoire.

Like Clara, both Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn) and Alma Schindler (1879-1964) are emerging from the shadows of the more famous men with whom they shared names. Fanny was the sister of Felix Mendelssohn. Both were child prodigies, both composed from a very early age — but Fanny was told by their father that for her, music ‘can and must be only an ornament’. Only a tiny proportion of her more than 450 compositions (including 250 songs) was published, and some under Felix’s name which made it extremely difficult to determine authorship. It was only discovered relatively recently that the colossal Easter Sonata is by Fanny, not Felix. What might Fanny Hensel have become had she been born a man?

Alma Schindler, meanwhile, is associated with her husband Gustav Mahler, who demanded that she choose between him and composing. It was only later after their marriage began to break down and Alma had an affair that Gustav finally started to support her composition, helping her to publish some songs in order to redress past wrongs. The damage, however, was very much done. Not only did Alma compose relatively little during her marriage, but many of her works are now lost. She has been remembered chiefly as Mahler’s wife.

Composing women’s lives were a constant balancing act between setback and success. Yes, they experienced significant discrimination and enormous barriers were put in their way. But many also seized what agency they had, fought to be taken seriously as artists, secured themselves stellar educations and forged formidable careers for themselves.

Both Boulanger sisters studied at the Paris Conservatoire, and Nadia was not only a composer but also a conductor, leading orchestras including the BBC Symphony, the Hallé, Boston Symphony, and Philadelphia Orchestras — to say nothing of the fact that she was one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated pedagogues, counting Philip Glass, Aaron Copland, Grażyna Bacewicz, and Daniel Barenboim among her pupils.

Rebecca Clarke, Joan Trimble (1915-2000) and Dilys Elwyn-Edwards (1918-2012) all studied in part at the Royal College of Music, and went on to have dual careers — Clarke and Trimble as composer-performers, and Elwyn-Edwards as a composer-teacher. Ina Boyle (1889-1967) studied privately with Ralph Vaughan Williams, who supported her music unequivocally. Compared to the other women here, Boyle’s music was performed only occasionally. Vaughan Williams wrote to her that ‘it is most courageous of you to go on with so little recognition. The only thing to say is that it sometimes does come finally.’

His words proved prophetic. Interest in Boyle’s music is accelerating, with her Second Symphony given its world premiere last year and her music increasingly being programmed at venues like Shipston. Despite the disbelief of historical commentators, women could and did become exceptional composers, and their music deserves to be heard.

Dr Leah Broad is an awardwinning music writer, historian, and broadcaster. She is the author of Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World.

Artists' Biographies

Ian Tindale Artistic Director

‘A wonderfully responsive and assured pianist’ (The Telegraph), Ian Tindale is increasingly in demand as a specialist in song repertoire and chamber music. His recital partners have included leading song performers Ailish Tynan, Roderick Williams, James Gilchrist and Robin Tritschler, and his performances have taken him to Europe, North America and across the UK. Highlights in the 2023 include recitals for BBC Radio 3 in the Hay Festival with Soraya Mafi, at London’s Wigmore Hall with Harriet Burns, and the commencement of a new role as Official Pianist for the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Past concert highlights have included a recital tour throughout Europe with baritone and ECHO Rising Star Josep-Ramon Olivé in venues including Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and Palau de la Música, Barcelona; Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich songs in 2020 for English Touring Opera and Marquee Arts TV; and at the Ludlow English Song Festival Day at the Wigmore Hall in 2022.

Ian has formed several fruitful collaborative partnerships in the last decade, most significantly with soprano Harriet Burns, with whom he has given acclaimed performances at the International Lied Festival Zeist, Oxford Lieder Festival, and at the Ryedale Festival. Their debut disc of Schubert Lieder will be released by Delphian in early 2024.

Ian also has a long-standing performing relationship with tenor Nick Pritchard, with whom he gave the world premiere of Daniel Kidane’s Songs of Illumination in 2018 at Leeds Lieder. Together they made their debuts at the Edinburgh International Festival in August this year with a recital of Britten, Poulenc and Fauré, recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

As a chamber musician, Ian has partnered Belgian clarinettist Annelien van Wauwe in recitals at Ryedale Festival and on the BBC. Ian is also a member of Ensemble Kopernikus, who recently recorded the first two discs in a planned series exploring the chamber music of Percy Hilder Miles for MPR.

Ian is a graduate of Selwyn College, Cambridge, and the Royal College of Music in London. Ian has been awarded Pianist’s Prizes in the Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation Song Competition, Kathleen Ferrier Awards, Royal Overseas League Music Competition, Gerald Moore Award and Maggie Teyte Competition. He is a Britten Pears Young Artist and a Samling Artist. He founded Shipston Song in September 2022.

Since winning the London Handel Singing Competition in 2018, Helen Charlston has crafted a place for herself at the forefront of the classical music scene in the UK and abroad. A founder participant of the Rising Star of the Enlightenment programme, she regularly works alongside the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, appearing in their film version of Dido’s Lament inspired by Coldplay’s iconic video of ‘The Scientist’. She is a BBC New Generation Artist (2021-23), was a member of Le Jardin des Voix academy with Les Arts Florissants in 2021-22 and won the Loveday Song Prize at the 2021 Kathleen Ferrier Awards. In July 2022, Helen was announced as one of Classic FM’s Rising Stars (30 under 30).

This season, Helen sings the title role in Dido & Aeneas with William Christie in Versailles, and Sorceress/Spirit in the same piece at The Grange Festival, Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the role of Irene Theodora with the Philharmonia Baroque in San Francisco, both with Richard Egarr, Handel’s Messiah with the Orchestra of The Age of Enlightenment in Copenhagen, and Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus with the RIAS Kammerchor at the Berlin Philharmonie with Justin Doyle.

Helen made her BBC Proms debut in 2022 and performs Mendelssohn’s Elijah at the 2023 Proms. An avid recitalist she has given performances at Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Leeds Lieder and Cheltenham Festival.

In 2022, Delphian Records released her second solo album, Battle Cry: She Speaks with Toby Carr for which she won the vocal award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards.

Sam Hird is studying at the Royal College of Music in London for a Master of Performance under the tutelage of baritone Peter Savidge. He is a Richard Silver Scholar and is supported by the Josephine Baker Trust.

Recent engagements include baritone solo in Jonathan Willcocks' In Praise of Singing at the Petersfield Musical Festival, baritone solo in Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony conducted by Jonathan Willcocks, London Song Festival masterclass with Sir Thomas Allen, and a Winter’s Night Recital of songs by Schubert, Britten and Fauré for baritone and guitar at All Saint's Church, York. In March this year Sam was baritone soloist in a special concert at the Royal College of Music to celebrate the life of composer Joseph Horovitz, and played the L’Ambasciatore in the RCM production of Respighi’s opera La Bella Dormente nel Bosco. He also performed the role of Jesus in Bach's St John Passion with Milton Keynes Chorale.

Previous engagements include baritone solo in Handel’s Messiah with the Orchestra of St John’s at Dorchester Abbey conducted by John Lubbock, bass chorus in Leoncavallo's Zingari with Opera Rara and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Cadogan Hall under Carlo Rizzi, Songs by George Butterworth at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and Maquerelle in John Marston’s The Malcontent in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe in London.

Helen Charlston mezzo soprano Sam Hird baritone

Welsh tenor, Dafydd Jones, has just made his international debut as Clotarco in Haydn’s Armida for the Bregenzer Festspiele. Busy making a name for himself on the operatic stage, he also made his role and festival debut as Pastore in John Caird’s production of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo for Garsington Opera as an Alvarez Young Artist.

Other operatic roles include Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni (OPRA Cymru), Title role in Orpheus in the Underworld (Royal College of Music International Opera Studio) and Joe in La Fanciulla del West (Verbier Festival) – Cancelled due to COVID-19.

Recently, Dafydd was a finalist in the Royal Over-seas Singer Section with pianist Emily Hoh. Other recent success saw him win the BrooksVan der Pump English Song Competition and was runner up in the Joan Chissell Schumann Competition at the Royal College of Music. At the College, Dafydd has also won the Ted Moss and Berther Taylor-Sach award for First Prize in the Lieder Competition and was Runner Up and recipient of the Cuthbert-Smith prize in the College’s Lies Askonas Competition.

In the summer of 2021, Dafydd won the Prix Thierry Mermod at the Verbier Festival as a member of the Academy Atelier Lyrique. He has also gained many accolades in Welsh competitions, to include winning the prestigious Osborne Roberts Memorial Prize – The Blue Riband at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 2019.

Currently a member of the studio at the Opéra national de Paris, Laurence studied as an ABRSM Vocal Scholar at the Royal College of Music in London, and at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. An inaugural Lies Askonas Fellow, he was the winner of the 2018 Kathleen Ferrier Society Bursary for Young Singers. He is the winner of the 2022 Wigmore Hall/Bollinger International Song Competition, the 2022 Cesti Competition at the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik and joint winner of the 2023 Das Lied Competition at the Heidelberger Frühling Festival.

His upcoming engagements include a return to the Salzburg and Aix-en-Provence Festivals and debuts for the Opera Comique, Oper Koln and the BBC Proms. His recent engagements have included Lucano / Soldato I / Famigliare II in L’incoronazione di Poppea in his debut for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence; Apollo/Pastore/Spirito in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo for the Nederlandse Reisopera and Henrik Egerman in Sondheim’s A Little Night Music for Opera North. Recent concert engagements have included Mozart’s Mass in C and Schubert’s Hymnus an den heiligen Geist at the Salzburg Festival with Ensemble Pygmalion/Raphaël Pichon; Bach’s Johannes Passion on tour with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Mark Padmore.

Laurence began his formal training as a chorister with the Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum, and won the title of BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year in 2009, subsequently making his solo debut at the Royal Albert Hall. He appears as treble soloist on a number of recordings, including the Grammy nominated album, Handel’s L’Allegro, Penseroso ed il Moderato with the Gabrieli Consort and Paul McCreesh. He has given recitals at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin and Cheltenham Festival.

Francesca Lauri recently graduated from the Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance, where she studied with Sergio De Simone, with a First-Class Honours degree receiving the TCL Silver Medal for piano studies and winning the David Gosling Prize for Piano Accompaniment. During her time there, she won the duo prize in the Lilian Ashe French Song Competition and the English Song Prize two years in a row. She is currently studying Collaborative Piano with Simon Lepper, Kathron Sturrock and Roger Vignoles at the Royal College of Music and is the recipient of the Ian Evans Lombe Scholarship. Francesca has performed in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Milton Court, the Fazioli Concert Hall, LSO St. Luke’s and Teatru Manoel in Malta. She is a 2023 Leeds Lieder Young Artist and has recently won the RCM Lieder Competition piano prize and is also the winner of the 2022 Somerset Song Piano Prize and the AESS Dorothy Richardson English Song Piano Prize, as well as a finalist in the 2023 ROSL awards. In recent years, Francesca has participated in masterclasses with Veronique Gens, Dame Sarah Connolly, Kate Royal, Nikky Spence and Stephan Loges.

As well as performing song repertoire, Francesca has repetiteured for various opera companies such as for HCO’s production of ‘Don Pasquale’ last Easter and SPO’s production of ‘Albert Herring’ last summer. She was also assistant conductor for Gothic Opera on their double bill of operas by female composers; ‘Le Loup Garou’ by Louise Bertin and ‘Le Dernier Sorcier’ by Pauline Viardot in October. Francesca recently repetiteured for the RCM Opera Scenes and her projects for 2023 include repetiteuring for Hurn Court’s production of Puccini’s ‘La Boheme’ and the Opera Maker’s concert of ‘Der Wald’ by Ethel Smyth.

Known for her sparkling and rich colours, Henna Mun is a South Korean singer, born in Japan and raised in Canada. She is in her first year of the International Opera School at the Royal College of Music in London, currently studying with Sarah Tynan.

Henna has played Eurydice in Orpheus in the Underworld, La Principessa in La bella dormente nel bosco, Jenny Lind in Barnum’s Bird, Ilia in Idomeneo, Adina in L’elisir d’amore (Opera Scenes), Anna in Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (Opera Scenes) and covered the roles of Papagena (Die Zauberflöte) and the Dew Fairy (Hänsel und Gretel). This summer, Henna joined the Atelier Lyrique programme at the Verbier Festival.

Additional performances include being a guest artist at Sumi Jo’s concert in Japan, the soprano soloist for Brahm’s Ein Deutsches Requiem, Berlioz’s Les nuits d'été, Handel’s Messiah (Part 1), Vivaldi’s Gloria, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, and Handel’s Dixit Dominus.

Henna has been the recipient of several awards and scholarships over the past couple of years, including the Basil Coleman Opera Award, Midori Nishiura Scholarship, Gaelyne Gabor Memorial Prize, and the Kiwanis Club of Casa Loma Scholarship.This year, she is supported by the Josephine Baker Trust and the Drake Calleja Trust. Henna is delighted to have graduated with a Master of Performance with Distinction at the RCM this July.

Shipston Song 2023

Francesca Lauri piano

Dafydd Jones tenor

Henna Mun soprano

Laurence Kilsby tenor

Anna is a London-based composer and singer. Recent commissions include works for the Royal Opera House, The Sixteen, The Marian Consort, Waterperry Opera Festival, Wells Cathedral, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, SANSARA and Whiddon Autumn Festival. She has worked with a wide variety of artists including vocal consort EXAUDI, clarinettist Vicky Wright of PlusMinus Ensemble, members of the London Symphony Orchestra, and solo accordionist Miloš Milivojević via Psappha’s ‘Composing for’ scheme. Anna's first opera was performed at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow in June 2019, conducted by Stephanie Childress, and her work 'Drop down ye heavens' is published in the Multitude of Voyces' SATB Anthems Anthology, which has been recorded by the BBC Singers. Anna is one half of Sol Pont - a new experimental collective based in cross-arts collaboration, set up with Emily Pahlawan Collinson. She is a composer-singer with HEXAD Collective.

Roderick Williams is one of the most sought-after baritones of his generation with a wide repertoire spanning baroque to contemporary which he performs in opera, concert and recital.

He enjoys relationships with all the major UK opera houses and has sung opera world premières by David Sawer, Sally Beamish, Michel van der Aa, Robert Saxton and Alexander Knaifel as well as performing major roles including Papageno, Don Alfonso, Onegin and Billy Budd.

He performs regularly with leading conductors and orchestras throughout the UK, Europe, North America and Australia, and his many festival appearances include the BBC Proms, Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Aldeburgh and Melbourne.

As a composer he has had works premièred at Wigmore Hall, the Barbican, the Purcell Room and on national radio. In December 2016 he won the prize for Best Choral Composition at the British Composer Awards. From 2022/23 season he takes the position of Composer in Association of the BBC Singers.

Roderick Williams was awarded an OBE in June 2017 and was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Opera in both the 2018 Olivier Awards for his performance in the title role of the Royal Opera House production of Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and in 2019 for his role in ENO’s production of Britten’s War Requiem. He was Artist in Residence with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra from 2020/21 for two years as is an Artist in Residence at the 2023 Aldeburgh Festival. He was also one of the featured soloists at the coronation of King Charles III in 2023.

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2-4 Market Place Shipston-on-Stour Warwickshire CV36 4AG

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Anna Semple composer

Roderick Williams baritone