January News
We started 2025 with an absolutely wonderful masterclass from legendary soprano Dame Felicity Lott. Dame Felicity coached four of our new sopranos: Georgie Malcolm, Natasha Agarwal, Eyra Norman and Phoebe Smith. It was a fabulous event: we are so grateful to Dame Felicity for giving our singers lots of sound advice; to our young artists for singing beautifully and with enthusiasm; to our pianist George Ireland for his inspiring playing; and to each of our audience members for coming.
It was terribly disappointing that Storm Eowyn forced us to cancel Ross Cumming’s lecture recital in Henley, and we are truly grateful to our generous audience members who have enabled us to fulfil our contracts with both the young artists and the venue. We are very much looking forward to seeing Ross later in the year, when we hope the weather will behave itself a little better!
This month, on 16 February, we begin our recital series at Burgh House and will host lecture recitals with Grace Nyandoro in London (Wednesday February 19 at Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square) and Phoebe Smith in Henley (Friday February 21 at The Christ Church Centre, Reading Road).
January was busy for our Young Artists elsewhere too – they were off to a flying start after recuperating from the madness of the musical Christmas season. Natasha Agarwal, soprano, appeared at the Royal Opera House for one of their Family Sundays, performing two recitals and leading two singing workshops. Her performance included songs and arias by Lehar, Dove, Armstrong Gibbs and Fraser-Simpson. Natasha reports that all participants in the workshop session for children and their families were very enthusiastic! Brava, Natasha!
Ross Cumming, baritone, appeared with Scottish Opera in their Opera Highlights Express tour. They toured 24 venues across Scotland, bringing with them operatic favourites from Beethoven, Bizet, Handel, Donizetti, Tchaikovsky and more. The pieces were brought together to form vignettes taking place at some of Scotland’s main train stations, “places of greetings and goodbyes”.
In further news, alumni Glen Cunningham and Joanna Harries both enjoyed album releases in January. We strongly encourage you to check out their albums – My Heart’s in the Highlands and Letters from Scandanavia!