Fascinating interview given by Sydney born bass baritone, Morgan Pearse. It really is a must listen for all aspiring young singers here
Morgan Pearse website
Category: Tait Awardee Update
Siobhan Stagg sings at the Salzburg Festival. Next stop Berlin!
Siobhan Stagg recently sang the role of St Catherine in Brauenfels opera, Jeanne d’Arc @SbgFestival. Siobhan was a Tait Awardee 2012, the Sinclair and Wendy Hill Award.
This lovely review of @SiobhanStagg in Seen and Heard
Due to her Prize from the Australian International Opera Awards, Siobhan studied at the Wales International Academy of Voice in Cardiff
” The small rôle of St. Catherine was helped to unexpected prominence by the wonderfully appealing, charismatic voice of soprano Siobhan Stagg, a fresh and healthy instrument, with friendly ease through every register”
Other roles for Siobhan at the Salzburg Festival include:
SALZBURG FESTIVAL: Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail für Kinder (SALZBURG, AUSTRIA)
Photo (c) Dorike van Genderen
Sunday 28 July @ 11am (SOLD OUT)
Saturday 10 August @ 3pm
Monday 12 August (CLOSED)
Wednesday 14 August @ 5pm
Sunday 25 August @ 3pm
Siobhan plays Konstanze in this family-friendly production of Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio. Conducted by Ben Gernon (Winner 2013 Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award) and directed by Johannes Schmid.
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SALZBURG FESTIVAL: Jeanne d’Arc (SALZBURG, AUSTRIA)
Thursday 1 August @ 8PM, Felsenreitschule.
Siobhan plays Saint Catherine in this important concert performance of Joan of Arc by Walter Braunfels (1882–1954). Manfred Honeck conducts the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien.
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SALZBURG FESTIVAL: Pamina in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte für Kinder
PREMIERE: Thursday 8 August @ 5PM (SOLD OUT)
Sunday 11 August @ 3PM
Wednesday 28 August @ 5PM
Siobhan Stagg plays Pamina in The Magic Flute for children. Directed by Ulrich Peter and conducted by Kai Röhrig.
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SALZBURG FESTIVAL: Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor
Friday 23 August 2013 @ 9pm, ‘Residenzhof’, Residenzplatz 1
5020 Salzburg
To celebrate the culmination of the Salzburg Festival’s Young Singers Project, the soloists perform a gala concert with Camerata Salzburg conducted by Theodor Guschlbauer. Siobhan sings the role of Mademoiselle Silberklang in Mozart’s comic singspiel, The Impresario.
DEUTSCHE OPER BERLIN (BERLIN, GERMANY)
September 2013 – June 2014
Roberto Alagna and Elena Garanca in Carmen at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
For the 2013/14 season Siobhan joins the Deutsche Oper Berlin as one of five young artists. She will perform several roles in the company’s mainstage season including Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Woglinde in Das Rheingold and the Woodbird in Siegfried (starring Eric Owens and conducted by Sir Simon Rattle), Frasquita in Carmen (starring Roberto Alagna) and Sophie in Werther (starring Vittorio Grigolo).
Click this link to see Siobhan’s complete performance schedule at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
“Un sol tuo sospiro” from J.A. Hasse’s serenata Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra (1725)
Siobhan Stagg (soprano) with the Orchestra of the Peninsula Summer Music Festival
conducted by Richard Divall AO OBE
Recorded at a live performance at the Peninsula Summer Music Festival on the Mornington Peninsula, Australia, in January 2012.
www.peninsulafestival.com.au
Siobhan Stagg website
Salzburg Festival website
Deutsche Opera Berlin website
Related articles
- Placido Domingo gets standing ovation in Salzburg (vancouverdesi.com)
XENIA DEVIATKINA-LOH, Violinist – to begin her Masters at the Royal Academy of Music
Xenia is a 2013 Tait Memorial Trust Awardee, She is due to begin a Masters degree in Violin at the Royal Academy of Music. The Trust are delighted to be supporting Xenia and wish her the very best for the 2013/2014 academic year.
Xenia Deviatkina-Loh studies violin with Alice Waten. She has performed with the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra, the South Melbourne Orchestra, the Kuringai Philharmonic Orchestra, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. She has also performed in Beleura House and Gardens, Melba Festival – Yarra Grange and Federation Square – Exhibition Centre. She’s been aired live on 3MBsFM, ABC radio, and Radio New Zealand. Xenia was the Junior Finalist and the Senior Winner of the Kuringai Philharmonic Concerto Competition in 2005 and 2008 respectively. She was the 2009 String Finalist of ABC Young Performer’s Award, and the 2009 winner of the Gisborne International Music Competition.
Xenia has had masterclasses and private lessons with The Brentano String Quartet, Trio Dali, Tasmin Little, Lina Bahn, Oleh Krysa, Charles Castleman, Kolja Blacher, Julian Rachlin, Zakhar Bron, Boris Kuschnir, Felix Andrievsky and Edward Dusinberre (Takács Quartet). She gained a full tuition scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music London. She will start her Masters degree in London later this year.
Xenia’s award from the Trust and her participation in the London Masterclasses is kindly supported by the Thornton Foundation
Sabina Im, Concert Pianist – Royal College of Music, Master of Piano Performance Degree
The Tait Memorial Trust was created by Isla Baring OAM to support young emerging Australian Performing Artists who wish to study in the UK. I am listening to a recording of Sabina Im, the Tait Memorial Trust representative at the 2013 London Masterclasses where she met and worked with Norma Fisher and sat in on masterclasses with Benjamin Zander, Ralph Kirshbaum, Gyorgy Pauk and Rosalind Plowright, she is playing the Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 17 in d minor, Op. 31. No. 2. Her performance of this famous piece is beautiful with a flowing technique and expression way beyond her years. Sabina Im is exactly the type of artist the Trust wants to support. We are delighted to hear that her career is blossoming.
Sabina is currently at home in Sydney and will be returning to London in the Autumn as she has been accepted into the coveted Master of Piano Performance Degree at the Royal College of Music, which will commence in September 2013.
“Thanks to this Tait Memorial Trust I met one of the greatest piano teachers in the UK. During my studies at the Royal College, I will be taking private lessons with Norma Fisher as well as learning from Andrew Zolinsky.” Sabina Im. August 2013
Before her postgraduate studies commence in September, Sabina will be giving two recitals:
Theme & Variations Piano Services
451 Willoughby Road, Willoughby NSW 2068.
The first recital will be part of the Emerging Artist Series. Sabina will be giving a 40 minute recital on the 25th of August at 2:40pm. The program will be Schumann’s Carnaval Op.9 and Ginastera’s Danzas Argentinas, Op.2. This recital is open to the public.
The second recital Sabina will also be performing at the same location for the Theme and Variations Foundation on 1st of September. Sabina is one of four selected candidates who will be performing a 20 minute recital which is open to the public. Two successful candidates will be awarded $10 000 to support their studies.
All of us at the Tait Memorial Trust send Sabina our good wishes and we will be thinking of you and hope you win the AUD$10,000 prize. We will contact our Friends in the Tait Performing Association in Sydney and see if we can provide some welcome support.
If anyone is interested in attending these performances, please let them know! Their support will be greatly appreciated!
Biography
Sabina has recently been accepted into the Master of Piano Performance Degree at the Royal College of Music, which will commence in September 2013. In 2012, Sabina graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance Degree with honors, on a full scholarship from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore. Under the tutelage of Albert Tiu, Sabina has given several solo and chamber recitals within Singapore. She has performed in masterclasses conducted by Norma Fisher, Cyprien Katsaris, Joseph Banowetz, Santiago Rodriguez, John Perry and Sara Buechner. Recently, Sabina was selected to take part in the London Masterclasses with a full scholarship provided by the Tait Memorial Trust. She has also been featured in the Artist Concert Series at the John F. Kennedy Center during the Washington International Piano Festival.
Prior to tertiary studies, Sabina commenced piano lessons with Dr. Christine Logan during her early teens. She was awarded a full music scholarship to study at St. Catherine’s School, Waverley. At the age of thirteen, Sabina gave her solo debut performance at the Sydney Opera House. Since then Sabina actively performed in notable venues such as the Metropolitan Art Space in Tokyo, Japan in 2005 and the University of New South Wales in 2006. Sabina has performed for prominent individuals such as the Korean ambassador and Sir Donald Spencer. In 2007, she was a guest performer in “Richard Tognetti with the Australian Chamber Orchestra Concert” at St. Catherine’s School Waverley. Sabina has also been invited to perform for radio broadcast stations in Sydney such as SBS Broadcast 97.7FM and 2MBS-FM 102.5FM Radio Station consecutively from 2002 till 2008. She has been successful in competitions within Sydney.
Inspired by the humble musicians such as Mitsuko Uchida and Alfred Brendal, Sabina strives to be a dedicated artist who persistently seeks a great depth in musicality. Uchida once said, “What really matters is that your love of music is stronger than your love for yourself.” Sabina aspires to search for a deep insight in music and create thought-provoking performances.
Nicholas Lester, Baritone
Just heard from 2009 Tait Awardee, Nicholas Lester. I remember meeting him in 2006 when he was singing small roles with Opera UK. He has worked several times for Opera Holland Park since and has obviously been doing very well.
Recent roles include Edward Lear in Ode to nonsense for State Opera of South Australia and Slingsby Theatre; Songs of a Wayfarer, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen – part of the Rudolph Nureyev Gala for English National Ballet. Upcoming roles include Don Giovanni (cover), Dr Malatesta in Don Pasquale and Ping in Turandot for Scottish Opera
Biography
Nicholas Lester, now a UK citizen resident in London, studied at the Adelaide Conservatorium of Music and at the National Opera Studio, London where his studies were sponsored by Glyndebourne Festival Opera as the recipient of the Anne Woods/Johanna Peters Award. He was also a recipient of an Independent Opera/National Opera Studio Postgraduate Voice Fellowship and an award from the Tait Memorial Trust. While at the National Opera Studio he appeared in concert with the Welsh National Opera Orchestra and covered Belcore L’elisir d’amore at Welsh National Opera.
Early in his career Nicholas Lester’s operatic engagements included The Foreman Jenufa for Glyndebourne On Tour, Count Almaviva The Marriage of Figaro and Theseus A Midsummer Night’s Dream for English Touring Opera, Doctor and Shepherd Pelléas et Méllisande at Opera Holland Park, Diarte Erismena (Cavalli) with New College Opera, Oxford and Justizrat and coverStorch Intermezzo with Scottish Opera.
Other roles Nicholas Lester has performed are Marcello La bohème, Onegin Eugene Onegin, Pietro Simon Boccanegra, Count Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro, Don Alfonso Cosi fan tutte, Speaker The Magic Flute, Malatesta Don Pasquale, Second Prisoner Fidelio, Aeneas Dido and Aeneas, Miguel Betrothal in a Monastery (Prokofiev), Colonel Calverly Patience, Pirate King The Pirates of Penzance,and Sir Joseph Porter HMS Pinafore. His repertoire also includes Leporello Don Giovanni, Pasha Selim Abduction from the Seraglio, Paris Roméo et Juliette, Kagler Wiener Blut, Brioche The Merry Widow, Kuligin Katya Kabanova, Fiorello Il barbiere di Siviglia and The Vicar Albert Herring.
Nicholas Lester has a busy concert diary. Recent engagements have included performances of Mendelssohn Elijah, Bach Cantatas, Rameau Motets and Mozart Requiem. He has sung Brahms Requiem in Beijing, Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Fauré Requiem at St Martin-in-the- Fields and Handel’s, The Messiah under Laurence Cummings.
Nicholas Lester’s recent engagements include Marcello for the State Opera of South Australia and Onegin Eugene Onegin and Figaro The Barber of Seville for English Touring Opera. Last season he performed Schaunard La Boheme with the Nationale Reisopera in the Netherlands, a role he repeated with Glyndebourne On Tour last autumn and The Speaker The Magic Flute for Scottish Opera in a new production to be directed by Sir Thomas Allen.
Website: www.nicholaslester.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LesterNicholas
Sky Ingram, A young soprano on her way
Tait Awardee, Australian Soprano, Sky Ingram has just completed a year at the prestigious National Opera Studio. Highlights included the Welsh National Opera and Scottish Opera residencies, the song project with Ian Burnside, and working with Keith Warner and Nicholas Cleobury on the Contemporary Opera Scenes – where she was lucky enough to work with composer Jonathan Dove; who re-wrote the last 2 bars of one of his pieces for Sky to better suit the opera scenes!
Sky is now preparing to work as a principal soprano at Opera North. Her roles will include Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Festival of Britten, and then again in 2014 as the cheeky Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème.
We are delighted to hear that Sky has signed with the agency Ingpen & Williams and English National Opera have engaged her on a cover contract for 2013 .
Wonderful news Sky.
Website: www.skyingram.com
Sydney Chamber Opera, Owen Wingrave
The new production of Benjamin Britten’s television opera, Owen Wingrave is getting rave reviews from the press in Sydney.
Above a lovely article from the Sydney, Daily Telegraph and a review from Limelight here
The cast includes Tait Awardees, Morgan Pearse and Simon Lobelson. We are delighted to read the attached reviews and look forward, hopefully, to hearing a recording(?)
Owen Wingrave SCO
Morgan returns to London to sing at Wigmore Hall later this month. Bravo
OWEN WINGRAVE
Opera in two acts, Op. 85 by Benjamin Britten
Libretto by Myfanwy Piper
Australian Stage Premiere
Benjamin Britten is the most important British composer of the twentieth century, and is the greatest composer of opera in English. Based on a Henry James ghost story, Owen Wingrave is a statement of Britten’s lifelong pacifism. Composed during the Vietnam War, it is the story of a young soldier from an eminent military family whose anti-war instincts lead him to rebel against his upbringing. Desperate to keep his would-be bride and prove he isn’t a coward, he is forced to confront the ghosts of his ancestry.
The music is Britten at his refined, luminous best, with influences ranging from Gamelan to twelve-tone techniques. Imara Savage returns to Sydney Chamber Opera to direct the work’s Australian stage premiere.
Photography: Samuel Hodge
Conductor
Jack Symonds
Director
Imara Savage
Set & Costume
Katren Wood
Lighting Design
Conductor
Jack Symonds
Director
Imara Savage
Set & Costume
Katren Wood
Lighting Design
Ross Graham
With
Morgan Pearse, Georgia Bassingthwaighte, Rowena Cowley, Emily Edmonds, Paul Ferris, Pascal Herington, Simon Lobelson, Kornelia Perchy, boys’ choir, orchestra, and male movement ensemble
Date & Time
7.30pm Sat 3, Mon 5, Wed 7, Fri 9, Sat 10 August 2013
Venue
Carriageworks Bay 20, 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh
Tickets
$60/$30 available here
The above details from the Sydney Chamber Opera site
Morgan Pearse site
Simon Lobelson site
Primavera Shima to play at Tait Winter Prom 2013
Australian pianist, Primavera Shima, has been the recipient of major prizes and awards in numerous national and international competitions. The Tait Memorial Trust are delighted that Miss Shima has agreed to play in our Tait Winter Prom and will open the second half of the concert with a Schumann Romance and, for the first time in the UK, Guido Agosti’s thrilling transcription of a suite from Stravinsky’s ever-popular ballet The Firebird.
Tait Winter Prom, November 26 6.30pm reception – 7.30pm concert begins Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square, Sloane St, Chelsea SW1X 9BZ
Most recently, she won the first prize in the Cecile Edel-Latos Competition in Chatou, and reached the keyboard finals in the Royal Overseas League Competition in London where she received the Overseas Award and the Tait Memorial Trust Scholarship. In 2010, she became the first ever dual recipient of the Sterndale Bennett Prize and the Scholarship since its inception 140 years ago. The same year, she received the Managing Director’s Award in the Jaques Samuel Intercollegiate Piano Competition. She won the first prize in the Werner Baer Memorial Award in 2004, and in 2009, reached the semi-finals of the Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition with an Encouragement Award. After being selected as one of the state-finalists in the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Award in 2001, she performed an hour long live programme on the 2MBS-FM. In 2011, she reached the semi-finals for both the Pancho Vladigerov International Piano Competition in Bulgaria, and the 5th Campillos International Piano Competition in Spain.
Primavera performed the Liszt Piano Concerto No.1 with the East-West Orchestra at the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney, under the baton of Henryk Pisarek. She made her Paris debut at the Salle Cortot in 2012.
Primavera gained a first class mark for her final recital and received her Bachelor’s Degree with Honours from the Royal Academy of Music in London. Previously, she studied at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, and the Juilliard Pre-College in New York. Her teachers have included John Perry, Margaret Hair, Elizabeth Powell, Herbert Stessin, and Ian Fountain. She has also participated in Masterclasses given by Marc Durand and Lev Vlassenko. She is currently studying at the Ecole Normale de Musique Alfred Cortot in Paris under the direction of Marian Rybicki.
Primavera Shima’s website
Helena Dix to sing the title role in 'Cristina, regina di Svezia' at Wexford Festival Opera
Delighted to hear that Tait Memorial Trust awardee, Helena Dix is to sing the title role in Cristina, regina di Svezia at Wexford Festival Opera Performances on the 25th, 28th, 31st October and the 3rd of November 2013.
Helena Dix biography from her website
Having won the Wagner Society’s 2012 Bursary Competition, Helena Dix has begun to establish herself as one of the UK’s up-and-coming Wagnerian sopranos.
Australia-born Helena has had a great deal of success in competitions, most notably representing Australia in the 2005 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. Helena was also runner up in the prestigious Herald Sun Aria, a finalist in the McDonalds Aria held at the Sydney Opera House and won the Nino Sanciolo scholarship to further her studies in Italy. Helena has been successful in many competitions in London and competed in the finals of the ‘Songmakers Almanac’, the Opera Rara Bel Canto prize, Blyth Buesst Opera Prize, Clonter Opera prize and the Richard Lewis competition.
Helena’s operatic repertoire includes Flowermaiden, Parsifal for English National Opera, Rosalinde, Die Fledermaus and Hanna Glawari, The Merry Widow for Scottish Opera where she has also covered Frasquita, Carmen and Karolina in The Two Widows, Fiordiligi, Cosi fan tutte, Donna Anna, Don Giovanni and Nella, Gianni Schicchi for The Opera Project, Li-Li Greed for the Glyndebourne Young Artist Project and Musetta in La Boheme for Opera Novella. She has also covered the title role Ariadne auf Naxos for Garsington Opera. Other roles have included Felice School for Fathers, Erste Dame Die Zauberflöte, Title role Thais, Cio-Cio San, Madama Butterfly, Elvira, Ernani , Violetta, La Traviata and Noémie in Massenet’s Cendrillon.
Helena is in high demand on the international concert stage. She has sung with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic in Handel’s Messiah, receiving critical praise for her performance, and returning as soloist in several performances of Messiah, Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor and Carmina Burana. Recently, she returned to Australia to sing as a guest artist at Opera in the Alps and give a series of recitals including one for The Melba Trust at The Kooyong Tennis club.
In London her concert engagements include Handel Messiah, Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle Mozart Coronation Mass in C, Requiem and Mass in C Minor, Oratorio de Noel by Rheinberger, Saint-Saens Christmas Oratorio, Brahms Requiem, Richard Strauss Four Last Songs, Mendelssohn Elijah, Beethoven 9th Symphony, Mozart Exsultate Jubilate, Faure Requiem, Britten War Requiem, Orff Carmina Burana, Haydn’s Creation and Verdi Requiem for which she is always in demand. Helena has performed in many of the UK’s leading venues, including The Royal Albert Hall, Barbican, Cadogan Hall, Westminster Abbey, St. James Piccadilly, St John’s Smith Square, Dorchester Abbey, St.Paul’s, Ripon, Guildford and Gloucester Cathedrals. Her credits with orchestras include the RPO and she has sung under the baton of conductors such as Sir Colin Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras, Simone Young, Matthew Willis, Giuseppe Finzi and Mark Wigglesworth.
Since having won the Wagner Society’s Bursary Competition, Helena has performed in the 2012 Bayreuth Stipendiatenkonzert at the Festspielhaus for members of Wagner’s family and recently sang in Karlsruhe as part of the International Wagner prize. She gave a concert of Strauss Lieder with the Music Camp Orchestra and then went on to perform Strauss’ Four Last Songs at Cadogan Hall.
Upcoming engagements include her ongoing contract with Lübeck as Elettra in Idomeneo ,the Title role in La Gioconda in Vallodiad, Erste Dame in Magic Flute at the Tobacco Factory, Verdi requiem at The Royal Albert Hall, Strauss Songs at St. John’s Smith Square and Mahler’s Rückert Lieder with Northampton Symphony.