May 2004
Programme
- Cantata for soprano and continuo: "Nice, che fa? che pensa?" (HWV 138)
- Cantata for alto and continuo: "Siete rose rugiadose" (HWV 162)
- Sonata in D major for violin and continuo (HWV 371)
- Cantata for soprano and continuo: "O numi eterni" (Lucrezia) (HWV 138)
- Two German arias for mezzosoprano/soprano, violin, and continuo:
- Cantata for alto and continuo: "Deh, lasciate e vita e volo" (HWV 103)
- Duet for soprano, alto, and continuo: "Tanti strali al sen mi scocchi" (HWV 197)
Performers
Angharad Gruffydd Jones (soprano) read languages at Clare College, Cambridge, before winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Music to study with Margaret Kingsley, graduating in 2001. She was awarded the Miriam Licette Scholarship for French Song in 2000, which funded several short periods of study in France. Angharad has wide concert experience both as a consort singer and as a soloist, working with conductors such as Ivor Bolton, Richard Hickox, Robert King, Sir Roger Norrington, and Peter Schreier, in repertoire from Bach and Handel to Samuel Barber. Recent engagements include: performances of Haydn's Nelson Mass and Mozart's Vespers throughout the USA, and a European tour of Handel's L'Allegro ed il Pensieroso, both with the Monteverdi Choir under Sir John Eliot Gardiner; Monteverdi's Vespers in Washington DC under Harry Christophers; Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ for the Cambridge Music Festival; Handel's Dixit Dominus at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert; and performances of Bach's St Matthew Passion in Spain and Handel's Israel in Egypt in Vienna and the Barbican, with Harry Christophers and The Sixteen. She has recorded for BBC TV (The Genius of Mozart) and for Radio 3, and appears on a number of CD recordings for ASV and Arte Nova. Angharad was a member of Glyndebourne Touring Opera chorus in 2002. Operatic roles include Despina (Cosė fan tutte), Lucy (Menotti's The Telephone), Giannetta (L'Elisir d'Amore), Dorinda (Handel's Orlando) for the Cambridge Handel Opera Group, and, for the 2003 Buxton Festival, Iris in Handel's Semele, in which she also covered the title role. Appearances in 2004 include a European tour of Bach's B Minor Mass with the Monteverdi Choir under Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Bach's St Matthew Passion in Manchester Cathedral, Monteverdi's Vespers with the Brook St Band in Norwich, and madrigals by Monteverdi at the Aldeburgh Festival; she is the 2004 winner of the London Handel Festival Singing Competition.
Lucy Taylor (mezzosoprano) was a choral exhibitioner at Clare College, Cambridge, where she read Modern and Medieval Languages. She studied singing with Patricia MacMahon at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, graduating with the MMus (Advanced Opera). She has performed numerous operatic roles, including Arsamene (Serse) with the Cambridge Handel Opera Group (May 2003), Larina (Eugene Onegin) with Britten-Pears Opera (August 2003), and Diana (La Calisto) and Maurya (Riders to the Sea) at the RSAMD; she also shadowed Dorabella in the recent Scottish Opera production of Cosė fan tutte. Oratorio and recital work figure prominently in her repertoire: recent engagements have included Bach's Magnificat and Vivaldi's Gloria with the RSNO, Bach's St Matthew Passion at Trinity College, Cambridge, the UK premičre of Douglas Coombes's Requiem, a concert of Scots songs with the Orchestra of St John's, and recitals in the Queen's Hall and the Hub in Edinburgh. She recently performed as alto soloist for a tour and recording of Mahler's Symphony no. 2 with the Internationale Junge Orchesterakademie, including performances in the Markgraefliches Opernhaus, Bayreuth, and the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Lucy is now based in Cambridge: her plans include recitals around the UK and continuing projects with Live Music Now!, the organisation founded by Sir Yehudi Menuhin to promote the work of young musicians and bring live music at a professional level into the wider community, and with the Concordia Foundation.
Florence Cooke (violin) is currently in her third year reading Music at Gonville and Caius College. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music junior department and at the Purcell School with Krzysztof Smietana, and has taken part in masterclasses with several leading musicians including Wen Zhou Li, Lewis Kaplan, David Cerone, Howard Davis, and the Endellion String Quartet. This summer she has been awarded a scholarship to study for six weeks at the Banff Arts Centre in Canada. She is currently studying with David Takeno. As the first winner of the newly launched Nigel W. Brown Prize, Florence performed Bartók's Violin Concerto no. 2 with the Cambridge University Chamber Orchestra and Jonathan Del Mar. She has appeared as a soloist with several orchestras in Cambridge, as well as the Canterbury Philharmonic and the London Handel Orchestra. In Cambridge she was joint winner of the 2002 CUMS Concerto Competition, and holds an Instrumental Award for chamber music. She was a member of the Capriccio Piano Quartet, with whom she toured Sweden last summer. Last year she was leader of CUCO, and led and directed the Cambridge University Baroque Ensemble. She was also awarded the H. L. Perry Prize for musical performance. Florence has given solo and chamber music concerts in the UK, Sweden, France, Germany, USA, the Channel Islands, and Canada, and last summer she took part in a week of concerts given by Harmoniemusik in St Columb, Cornwall. She has played with the National Youth Orchestra and the Britten-Pears Orchestra, and is currently a member the European Union Chamber Orchestra. Next year she plans to take a Postgraduate course either in London or abroad, and gratefully acknowledges the support of the Musicians Benevolent Fund towards her postgraduate studies.
Samuel Roskams ('cello) is a first-year undergraduate reading History at Corpus Christi College. He studied 'cello at the Purcell School for two years, and at the junior department of the Royal Academy of Music for one year. He played in the National Youth Orchestra for two years, and, as well as performances with various Cambridge orchestras, he is currently a member of a semi-professional orchestra in Wales, the Sinfonia Cymru. Samuel holds an Instrumental Award for chamber music; in September 2004 his piano trio (Alexandra Reid, violin, and Nehali Shah, piano) will perform a concert as part of the Alumni weekend.
Jonathan Hellyer Jones (harpsichord) was born in Warwickshire but has spent much of his life in Cambridge where he read music at St John's College. He was awarded a John Stewart of Rannoch Scholarship, and in 1972 received the first Brian Runnett Memorial Prize for organ playing. He studied the harpsichord with Christopher Hogwood and the organ with Gillian Weir. He has performed on the organ and harpsichord in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, USA, Japan, and Mexico. In 1984 he founded the Cambridge Baroque Camerata to perform music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on period instruments. With his group he has presented many concerts in France, Mexico, and the UK, appearing on TV and radio. They have recorded several CDs, of which the most recent is Sacred Vocal Music from Eighteenth-Century Switzerland, with the choir of Gonville and Caius. In a solo capacity he has recorded music on eighteenth-century harpsichords and fortepianos as well as The Organ in the Age of Reason on the organ of Trinity College. In Norway and Sweden he has directed modern-instrument chamber orchestras in programmes of baroque music. In Cambridge he teaches at both universities, and is a Fellow, Organist, and Precentor at Magdalene College.