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Opera Prize 2021
Sponsored by Ann Driver Trust
Sat 6 February, 7pm
‘Superb variety…’
‘The standard was excellent… as always. A very enjoyable evening’
‘Exciting opportunity to hear some fine voices and possible national or international stars of the future’
Audience feedback from previous years
Past winners include Alfie Boe (1998)
So to this year’s programme!
As ever, we start the year with the Opera Prize, where 6 singers, nominated by the UK’s leading conservatoires, come head to head.
As predicted, in February we will still need to be working digitally, but akin to the recitals, we feel that it is still of huge benefit to provide the nominees with a recording opportunity, as well as KEEPING YOU ENTERTAINED during this 3rd Lockdown.
Sticking to the normal year’s calendar, we will pre-record the 6 nominees’ 3 arias, and then edit them together, to present to you the usual Opera Prize format, whereby you get to vote, alongside our panel of judges. Your vote is crucial!
The other panel members include representatives from Glyndebourne, and The Jette Parker Young Artists Programme, and soprano, Joan Rodgers CBE, as well as Clonter’s founder, Jeffery Lockett.
We are delighted to welcome Anna Meadmore, to step into the shoes of Isobel Flinn, as our compère extraordinaire, but this year we are asking the nominees to present their own arias, so you get to know them a little. This is something that has proved to be of value from the recital series, as well as the professional recording opportunity. Leading on from this, the prizes will be a bit different this year. The winner will receive a cheque for £1.5K and be offered a professionally recorded recital (worth £1,000), with individually edited arias, to send to agents and opera companies. The runner up will also receive a recorded recital opportunity, and individually edited arias.
After the concert, we will ask you to email us your vote, and these will be collated in the usual way, and the winner announced the following week.
Previous winners include – Alfie Boe (RCM) 1998, Camilla Tilling (RCM) 1999, Kate Royal (GSMD) 2003, Kathryn Rudge (RNCM) 2009, Natalya Romaniw (GSMD) 2010, Anush Hovhannisyan (RCS) 2012, Kang Wang (RNCM) 2014, Alexey Gusev (RCS) 2017, Emma Mockett (RCS) 2018, Alexandra Lowe (GSMD) 2019, and Lauren Young (RCS) 2020 (pictured above).
We very much hope you will be able to join us.
CONTESTANTS
Annie George (Mezzo Soprano) RWCMD
Mezzo soprano Annie George is in her final year at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama’s ‘David Seligman Opera School’ studying with Colette McGahon. Annie’s studies are supported by a Leverhulme Trust Arts Scholarship, a John Rath and John Underwood Scholarship, The Alastair and David McWilliam Memorial Bursary for Singing and a Help Musician’s Sybil Tutton Opera Award. Annie’s roles include Madame Flora in Menotti’s The Medium, Zweite Dame in Mozart’s Die Zauberflote and the Minkswoman in Dove’s Flight. Annie sung the role of Despina in Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte under the direction of Carlo Rizzi at the ‘Welsh National Opera’ Gala in November 2019 and the role of Zeftka in Janacek’s The diary of one who disappeared alongside Nicky Spence and Simon Lepper. She is thrilled to perform the roles of Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro in March 2021.
Michael Gibson (Tenor) RCM
Glasgow born tenor Michael Gibson is studying at the Royal College of Music’s Opera Studio under the tutelage of Janis Kelly. He is an Aldama scholar and is supported by the Sir James Caird Travelling Scholarships Trust, the Cross Trust, the Robertson Trust and Help Musicians UK. Michael previously graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, completing a Bachelor of Education in Music, and more recently the Royal Northern College of Music, where he completed his Master’s under Peter Alexander Wilson. Recent roles include Azael L’enfant Prodigue, Ecclitico Il mondo della Luna at the RCM Opera Studio and Rinuccio Gianni Schicchi at the RNCM. In opera scenes he has performed as Idomeneo Idomeneo, Tom Rakewell The Rake’s Progress, Fenton Falstaff, Lyonel Martha, Frederick The Pirates of Penzance, Jaquino Fidelio, Novice Billy Budd, Anatol Vanessa and Fritz L’amico Fritz. Last summer, Michael was a member of the Glyndebourne chorus for their productions of Il barbiere di Siviglia and La damnation de Faust. As an oratorio and concert soloist, Michael has performed works including Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Puccini’s Messa di Gloria, Bach’s St John Passion and B Minor Mass, Finzi’s Dies Natalis and Puccini’s Messa di Gloria. He has also given performances of song cycles including An die ferne geliebte, Winter Words, Ludlow and Teme and Die schöne Müllerin.
Ossian Huskinson (Bass-Baritone) RAM
Bass-baritone Ossian Huskinson studies with Mark Wildman and Iain Ledingham, at the Royal Academy of Music, where he is one of the Academy’s 2019/20 Bicentenary Scholars. He has won 1st prize in the Academy’s English Song Prize, and recently earned 2nd place in the Pavarotti prize. Previous roles with the Academy include Bottom A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Le Philosophe Chérubin, Sarastro Die Zauberflöte and King René Iolanta for Royal Academy Opera. In Summer 2019 he sang in the chorus of La damnation de Faust and Il barbiere di Siviglia with Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Ossian will play the role of Don Alfonso in Academy’s Spring production of Così fan tutte. He also looks forward to playing Zaretsky and covering the role of Gremin in Garsington Opera’s production of Eugene Onegin as part of their Young Artist Programme in Summer 2021.
Katherine McIndoe (Soprano) GSMD
Katherine is a soprano from New Zealand, studying on the Opera Studies programme at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama under Yvonne Kenny. She was a Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artist with New Zealand Opera, a member of the inaugural Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation Singer Development Programme, and has been a Britten-Pears Young Artist twice. She has performed at the Barbican, Wigmore Hall, Snape Maltings, Sadler’s Wells, and live for BBC Radio 3. She holds a Master of Performance with Distinction from the Guildhall and a Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours from the New Zealand School of Music. Her recent roles include Susanna Il segreto di Susanna, Iolanta Iolanta, the Governess The Turn of the Screw, Fiordiligi Così fan tutte, Marcellina Le nozze di Figaro, Tatyana Eugene Onegin, and Giulietta I Capuleti e I Montecchi. In 2021, she will sing Barbarina in Dove’s The Little Green Swallow at the Guildhall.
Pasquale Orchard (Soprano) RNCM
New Zealand soprano Pasquale Orchard was a 2019 Dame Malvina Major Emerging artist with NZ Opera. Pasquale graduated from the New Zealand School of Music with First Class Honours in 2017 and completed her Masters of Musical Arts in 2019. In 2018 Pasquale was the PACANZ National Young Performer of the year and was a finalist in the IFAC Handa Australian Singing competition, receiving a full tuition scholarship for the Masters programme at the Royal Northern College of Music completing her Masters of Music with distinction in 2020. Currently completing her Post-Graduate Diploma, Pasquale is generously supported by the Lady Maria Fisher Scholarship, the George Henry Peters Scholarship. And the José and Rafton Smallwood Award. In December of 2019 Pasquale made her international debut as Soeur Constance in the Royal Northern College of Music’s production of Dialogue des Carmelites and in 2020 she revisited the role of the Vixen in their socially distanced production of The Cunning Little Vixen.
Lea Shaw (Mezzo Soprano) RCS
Lea Shaw is an award-winning Mezzo-soprano from the Rocky Mountains of Denver, Colorado. She is studying her Masters of Opera at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, having received both her Bachelor of Music (1st class honours) and Masters of Music studying with Helen Lawson. She has performed diverse repertoire worldwide with conductors such as Marin Alsop, John Butt, and Sir Andrew Davies, and created works with James Macmillan in close collaboration.Throughout her time at the Alexander Gibson Opera School she has performed the roles of Bianca The Rape of Lucretia, Polly Peachum Die Dreigroschenoper, Mère Jéanne Les Dialogues des Carmélites, and is this year performing the roles of Sesto Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Minskwoman Flight and L’Enfant L’Enfant et les Sortilèges. She is a grateful recipient of the Maurice Taylor Opera Scholarship, a Sybil Tutton Award from Help Musicians UK, and a grant from the Dewar Arts Awards to enable her studies.
‘Pay What You Feel’ Policy
Having presented our digital outreach programme for free for the first half of Covid-19, we have now adopted a mechanism that is helping keep the prospect of theatres reopening globally a possibility, and that any new content is purchased on a ‘Pay What You Feel’ basis. This also enables us to offer this FREE to Friends and Patrons of Clonter.
Become a Friend – https://www.clonter.org/support-us/become-a-friend/
E-Tickets £5, £10, £20, FREE for Friends and Patrons of Clonter
There is no booking fee applicable for this event.
The link to the performance will be detailed on your e-ticket, which will be emailed to you upon purchase.
This event will be broadcast ‘live’ at 7pm on Saturday 6th February, but the show will be available for one week following broadcast.
If you have any queries, please contact our box office – boxoffice@clonter.org. Please be aware that the box office is currently only being manned on a Wednesday and Friday.
Book Now – https://www.clonter.org/booking-pages/operaprize6thfebruary2021/
