Monthly Archives: March 2007

Soprano

Susan Gilmore-Bailey

Susan sang with the choir during its Baroque Masterworks concert in March 2007.

Susan Gilmore Bailey, Soprano

Performing throughout the United Kingdom, Europe and North America, soprano Susan Gilmour-Bailey enjoys a varied career of concert, oratorio, and opera performances. Her recent projects have included the role of Euridice in Monteverdi Orfeo at the Théâtre de Caen with Le Concert d’Astrée under Emmanuelle Haim and the soprano solos in the City of London Sinfonia/Royal Shakespeare Company production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Originally from Canada, Ms. Gilmour-Bailey currently resides in London where in 2002 she completed her Masters in Vocal Performance at the Royal Academy of Music. Future projects include a staged production of Bach St John Passion at le Châtelet in Paris under Emmanuelle Haim and principal roles in the Fairy Queen and King Arthur for the Armonico Consort.

Previous concerts

Baroque Masterworks

7.30pm, Saturday 3 March 2007 – St Nicholas Church, Sevenoaks

Poster for Cantate Choir's March 2007 Concert - Baroque Masterworks

Soloists

Hazel Brooks – leader
Donna Bateman – soprano
Susan Gilmore-Bailey – soprano
Julia Riley – mezzo-soprano
Charne Rochford – tenor
James Gower – bass

Programme

Antonio Vivaldi 1678-1741 – Magnificat
Pachelbel – Canon in D (instrumental)
Henry Purcell 1659-1695 – Rejoice in the Lord alway
Henry Purcell - Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes
George Frederic Handel 1685-1759 – Dixit Dominus

Programme notes

View programme notes

Soprano

Donna Bateman

Donna sang with the choir during its Baroque Masterworks concert in March 2007.

Donna Bateman, Soprano

Donna Bateman is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, which she attended on a scholarship and distinguished herself as an award-winning music student. She won the coveted National Federation of Music Societies Award, and was a finalist in the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Prize. She was awarded a further scholarship to continue her studies on the Opera Course at the Royal Academy of Music, where she graduated with Distinction and was awarded the G. Embley Memorial Prize.

Her opera roles include Susanna Le Nozze di Figaro and Helena A Midsummer Night’s Dream for English Touring Opera, Mrs Coyle Owen Wingrave, Gismonda Ottone, for the London Handel Society, Frasquita Carmen, Queen Erisbe L’Ormindo for the Sir William Walton Trust in Italy and Marzelline in Birmingham Opera Company’s Award-winning production of Fidelio directed by Graham Vick and broadcast live on BBC4. Donna returned to BOC to perform the role of Cunegonde Candide, after which she performed the role of Coralina in Il Toreador at the Batignano Opera Festival. Most recently she performed in Flashmob, broadcast live on BBC Television. Recent Operatic highlights this season include 1st Nymph and The Foreign Princess in Rusalka for Iford Arts, Pamina, Magic Flute for English Touring Opera, her debut for The Royal Opera House ROH2 as Miranda in The Gentle Giant, La Cuisinière in Le Rossignol for the CBSO at the Symphomy Hall, Birmingham, Pamina, The Magic Flute in Lisbon and Zerbinetta for Birmingham Opera Company directed by Graham Vick.

Donna Bateman’s acknowledged expertise in contemporary operatic repertoire has earned her four major engagements and three recent world premieres. These major roles include Kalypso Linen from Smyrna by Edward Rushton, Khin Myo The Piano Tuner by Nigel Osborne co-commissioned by Music Theatre Wales and the Royal Opera House, Miranda Rainland by Joseph Phibbs and Miss Pescado in Judith Weir’s Armida, which was specially commissioned for Channel 4 Television and was broadcast on Christmas day.

Donna regularly performs recitals and concerts in the UK and abroad. She was invited to sing at the opening ceremony of the World Athletics Championships, was a soloist at the Royal Albert Hall, London, for the National Insurance Awards with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, while this season she has made regular appearances in concert with The Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra. Her Oratorio engagements include St. Matthew Passion, In Terra Pax at St. John’s, Smith Square, Haydn’s St Cecilia Mass at Winchester Cathedral and Mozart’s Mass in C minor at Chichester Cathedral with the Orchestra of St John’s, conducted by John Lubbock.

Her most recent solo engagements include Mahler’s Symphony no.8 at The Symphony Hall, Birmingham, David Fanshawe’s African Sanctus broadcast live on Radio 4 from St Martin in the fields, Carmina Burana with the Nottingham Symphony Orchestra at the Albert Hall Nottingham and Bernstein’s Mass at The Barbican Hall London with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop and recorded live by Radio 3.

Tenor

Charne Rochford

Charne sang with the choir during its Mozart Requiem & Schubert Mass in C concert in March 2006.

Charne Rochford, Tenor

Charne was born in London. He trained at the Royal Academy of Music as an undergraduate. He later rejoined the Academy on the Opera Course.

On the concert platform his repertoire includes Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Puccini Messe di Gloria, Verdi Requiem and Britten St. Nicholas.

In 2002 he made his Royal Opera House debut in Graham Vick’s Die Meistersinger as an Apprentice. He covered Pinkerton and later portrayed Tamino for Clonter Opera. In 2004 he sang Puccini’s Rodolpho for the Dartington Festival, supported by the Foyle Foundation. Last summer he made his Glyndebourne Festival Opera debut as the 1st Armed Man/2nd Priest with the O.A.E.

Future engagements include covering Alfred in Die Fledermaus for Glyndebourne Festival Opera and 2nd Priest in a film of the Magic Flute directed by Kenneth Branagh.

Mezzo-soprano

Julia Riley

Julia sang with the choir during its Mozart’s Requiem and Schubert’s Mass in C concert in March 2006.

Julia Riley, Mezzo-soprano

Julia Riley was born in York and studied at the Royal Academy of Music. She was then awarded an Entrance Scholarship for the Royal Academy Opera Course where she trained with Noelle Barker and Ingrid Surgenor. While at the Royal Academy Julia received rave reviews for her portrayal of Prince Charming in Massenet’s Cendrillon. “Julia Riley’s unforced and ample singing was the prime vocal pleasure.” Richard Fairman/The Financial Times/March 2005.

In December 2005 Julia made her Glyndebourne on Tour debut as Cherubino/Le nozze di Figaro. She recently made her Scottish Opera on Tour debut as Mezzo soloist with Essential Scottish Opera. In Glyndebourne Festival 2005 Julia performed Jonathan Dove’s mezzo song cycle All you who sleep tonight, with pianist Andrew Smith. This formed part of the Jerwood Chorus Scheme and was the first performance in the Glyndebourne Jerwood Studio.

Other opera roles include Bridesmaid/Le nozze di Figaro/Glyndebourne on Tour, Prince Charming/Massenet/Royal Academy Opera, Ino/Handel/British Youth Opera, Medoro/Handel/Dartington, Tisbe/Rossini/Opera East.

Oratorio and concert performances include Christmas Oratorio/St James’ Piccadilly/English Baroque Orchestra, B Minor Mass/London Bach Festival, Mozart/Requiem/St-Martin-In-The-Field, In the beginning/Copland/Southwark Cathedral, and Les nuits d’été/Berlioz/Penzance Orchestral Society. Future plans include understudying Dorabella in the 2006 Glyndebourne Festival.

Programme notes

Baroque Masterworks – Programme notes

7.30pm, Saturday 3 March 2007 – St Nicholas Church, Sevenoaks

Poster for Cantate Choir's March 2007 Concert - Baroque Masterworks

Soloists

Hazel Brooks – leader
Donna Bateman – soprano
Susan Gilmore-Bailey – soprano
Julia Riley – mezzo-soprano
Charne Rochford – tenor
James Gower – bass

Programme

Antonio Vivaldi 1678-1741 – Magnificat
Pachelbel – Canon in D (instrumental)
Henry Purcell 1659-1695 – Rejoice in the Lord alway
Henry Purcell - Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes
George Frederic Handel 1685-1759 – Dixit Dominus

Programme notes

Johann Mattheson said in 1713: In these times, whoever wishes to be eminent in music goes to England. In Italy and France there is something to be heard and learned; in England something to be earned.

These were turbulent but exciting times: the age of empire, when fortunes were to be made at home and abroad. In the hundred years between the birth of Henry Purcell and the death of George Frederic Handel, the Cromwellian Parliament gave way and the monarchy was restored. Some seven or eight monarchs (it depends on how many you consider williamandmary to be) held sway. Purcell’s London was one of the most musically cosmopolitan European cities in the late seventeenth century. During the period of the Commonwealth, music had been pared down to its essentials, dancing prohibited and most musicians became unemployed. When Charles II was restored to the throne, he set about re-igniting the pleasure centres of the nation. Both Purcell and Handel did well from royal patronage in church and theatre alike.

Vivaldi (1678-1741) was working in that other great cultural and commercial city, Venice, which though past its greatest days, still had much to offer and a rich cultural heritage to boast. Vivaldi represented progressive Italian musical thought of his day. His impact was immediate but he died almost totally forgotten in 1741. All his works were composed for definite occasions, many, like the Magnificat, performed by the renowned girls of the Orphanage de la Pieta. His contribution was that vital link in the transition from late Baroque to early Classical style, choosing a simpler harmonic code and clarity of form and structure over ornate polyphonic textures.

The Baroque period was the great age of instrumental music, when the instrument was freed from the position of slave accompanist to the human voice. This is the time of the great violin builders and the birth of the orchestra as we know it. By the end of the seventeenth century there is a noted difference between orchestral music and chamber music. It is fitting that we have a professional orchestra playing on period instruments at the pitch which would have been played in Handel’s own performances, approximately a semitone lower than modern pitch. The Canon in D is sumptuous baroque polyphony for strings by the ‘one-hit wonder’ Johann Pachelbel. Only the cellists dread it. 54 repetitions of the same eight-note ground bass. YouTube fans (and cellists) will enjoy a video called Pachelbel Rant on the subject of this piece (http://www.youtube.com/ just to show how modern we are in Cantate!)

Purcell (1659-1695) was the first English musical genius after William Byrd and last great composer in this land before the twentieth century. He was appointed organist of the Chapel Royal in 1682 and his verse anthems date between then and 1685. Charles II had ordered the use of instrumental sections in church music and Purcell rose to the challenge with a string of beautiful anthems (English) and motets (Latin). He also has a possibly unique body of funeral music for monarchs to his credit (see above).

Handel (1685-1759) was truly cosmopolitan, combining German seriousness, Italian suavity and French grandeur. These qualities matured in England, which was the centre for internationalism with a choral tradition which made his oratorios possible, when the popularity of Italian opera began to wane. A great orchestral innovator, he was noted for his imaginative use of instrumental colour, for word painting and dramatic effect. Dixit Dominus dates from his time in Italy and is a thunderbolt of a piece from a young and confident composer. Acknowledged as one of the great composers for chorus, he handles the texture and voice range in masterful fashion. He is not afraid to go after the poetic effect. Listen out for Conquassabit capita in terra multorum in No.6 of Dixit Dominus, when the Lord shatters the heads of the multitude, literally pounding them into the ground. Handel was internationally renowned in his own lifetime and his fame was never eclipsed.

Sara Kemsley