Emily Rowley Jones and Friends

Thursday 25 May 2006 - 7.30 pm - St Mary's Church Ashwell

Emily Rowley Jones - Soprano

David Stout - Baritone

Annabel Thwaite - Piano

PROGRAMME

First Half

Don Quichotte à Dulcinée - Ravel

3 early songs - Debussy

Songs - Vaughan Williams

Mignon songs - Schumann

La Ci Darem Don Giovanni - Mozart

INTERVAL

Mann und Weib (Die Zauberflöte) - Mozart

Mio Caro Bene (Rodelinda) - Handel

Counts Aria (Le Nozze Di Figaro) - Mozart

Ebben? Ne Andro Lontana (La Wally) - Catalani

Toreador song (Carmen) - Bizet

Quando M’en Vo Soletta (La Boheme) - Puccini

Younger Than Springtime (South Pacific) - Rogers and Hammerstein

Summertime (Porgy and Bess) - Gershwin

Stars (Les Misérables) - Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg

ENCORE

Bess You Is My Woman (Porgy and Bess) - Gershwin

We invite you to enjoy a glass of wine during the Interval. Please buy your ticket before the concert begins.

Emily Rowley Jones -

Soprano

Emily grew up in Ashwell and was educated at Ashwell School, St Francis’ College, Letchworth and Bedford High School for Girls. She started to sing in the Ashwell Church Choir and is indebted to Peter Rose and Judy Catterick for stimulating her interest to pursue a career in performance. She is the youngest of four daughters, three of whom are pursuing careers in music or theatre.
After studying under Professor Keith Davis, Emily graduated from The University of Southampton with a degree in music in 2002 and continued her studies as a postgraduate at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. In 2005, having studied under Annette Thompson, she was awarded a Masters, with distinction, in performance and was the top student. Whilst at the Guildhall she also won the Russell Davies Prize.
In 2003 she was a finalist in the London Welsh Young singer of the Year and in 2005 was third in the renowned Hampshire Singer of the Year competition. In 2004 she was the subject of a master class with Emma Kirkby, the acclaimed English soprano.
Emily has taken solo soprano roles in the Mozart Requiem, Fauré Requiem, Bach Magnificat, Vivaldi Gloria, Bach B Minor Mass, Handel Messiah and Pergolesi Stabat Mater. She performs regularly as a soloist with the London Welsh and South Wales Male Voice Choirs and very recently appeared with the former at the Cadogan Hall, London and Winchester Cathedral.
Emily’s operatic experience includes; Mark Anthony Turnage’s Greek at the Barbican, London, Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneus, in Oxford and Britten’s Peter Grimes, directed by Sir Trevor Nunn at the Salzburg Festival, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle followed by a concert version in Berlin. She has also recently been accepted as a member of the extra chorus for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Future engagements include the Mozart Requiem, the Bach St. John Passion and various recitals. Emily has auditioned successfully for the internationally acclaimed opera course at the Guildhall which she will start in September.

David Stout

A former Head Chorister of Westminster Abbey under Simon Preston, David spent his formative years in Cambridge, Uppingham and Mafekeng, South Africa. Subsequently, he studied Zoology at Durham University and joined the choir of St. John's College, Cambridge. By courtesy of the John Hosier Scholarship, Serena Fenwick and Alan Beurrier, he is on the Opera Course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studies with Rudolf Piernay.

His extensive concert repertoire includes: St. John and St. Matthew Passion (Christus - Salisbury Cathedral) and B Minor Mass (OSJ), The Messiah (OSJ), Judas Maccabaeus , The Creation, Elijah, Rossini La Petite Messe Solennelle and Stabat Mater, Verdi Requiem , Berlioz Messe Solennelle, Carmina Burana , Sea Symphony (Bach Choir) , Five Mystical Songs , Dvorak Stabat Mater , The Dream of Gerontius , Belshazzar's Feast , Iakov in Fleischmann's Rothschild's Violin and A Child of Our Time (King's College Chapel).

Whilst at the Guildhall his operatic roles include the title role of Falstaff conducted by Paolo Olmi, Ladinsky, A Comedy on a Bridge , Ulisse Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria , Opera Director Les Mamelles de Tirésias , Don Cassandro La Finta Semplice . For British Youth Opera, Forester The Cunning Little Vixen (QEH) and Guglielmo Così fan tutte (Peacock Theatre). Others include the title role of Eugene Onegin , Count Almaviva Le Nozze di Figaro , Escamillo Carmen , Ankerström Masked Ball , Captain Corcoran HMS Pinafore , Giuseppe The Gondoliers , Giorgio Germont La Traviata , Prince Yeletsky Queen of Spades , Scarpia Tosca , Belcore The Elixir of Love , Hardy Nelson.

David has also participated in masterclasses led by Sir Thomas Allen, José Cura, Thomas Hampson and Graham Johnson. He enjoys song recitals, having performed a variety of works from Songs of Travel to Des Knaben Wunderhorn with Annabel Thwaite and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Julian Philips' Swift Partitions with the Orchestra of the Swan.

Season's plans include Mozart Requiem with Sir Roger Norrington (OAE/Eton Chapel), Verdi Requiem with Stephen Cleobury, Bach B Minor Mass (Nottingham Harmonic), Schwanengesang at the Oxford Lieder Festival, Messiah in Wells Cathedral, Carmina Burana in Singen, Germany and a new commission, Masque for Caliban, by Julian Phillips, at the Three Choirs Festival. At the Guildhall, the title role of Gianni Schicchi and Marullo Rigoletto with Opera Holland Park.

Annabel Thwaite

Piano

Annabel began her musical studies at the age of six. She studied Solo Piano with Joan Havill and Accompaniment at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she gained both her Bmus and Masters' degree and won several prizes including the Piano, Lutine and English Song. She also won an English Speaking Union scholarship to study at the Ravel Acad é mie, St Jean-de-Luz from where she assisted Robin Bowman at the Nice Acad é mie, and then studied at the Conservatoire National Sup é rieur de Musique et Danse, Paris, with Henri Barda and Isabelle Dubuis. As an Accompanist she won a scholarship to attend the Lied et M é lodie course at the Fondation de Royaumont, France with Reuben Lifschitz.

As a Soloist and Chamber musician she has performed in various countries around the world including Canada, Sweden, France,
Italy and in England at the Birmingham Symphony Hall, concertos at the Imperial College, London, and solo recitals at St. Martins-in-the-Field, Wesley's Chapel and St

Sepulchre's. As an Accompanist she has performed at the Barbican Hall, Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, St. John's Smith Square and Snape Maltings in Aldeburgh.

She is the official accompanist to the London Welsh Male Voice choir where concerts have included a tour of England's cathedrals. She combines her performing career with teaching and coaching at Francis Holland and Colet Court. She was awarded the Sir Henry Richardson Prize for accompanists two years running and won the 2004 Piano Prize at the prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Competition. She most recently won the Gold Medal Prize at the Barbican Hall and the Richard Tauber Piano Prize at the Wigmore Hall