Our latest venture is a collaboration with 3 young musicians from Chippenham – a whistle stop tour of music from around the world. Our Artistic Director, Soprano Susan Coates, and Principal Pianist, Nick Goodall, have been working alongside Rebecca Sharp (Mezzo Soprano), Jacob Byrne (Piano) and Emma Jones (Saxophone) to put on this event in aid of Dorothy House Hospice Care.
It’s often easy to forget the amount of work that goes in to putting on a concert. Even the smallest of details, such as assembling and stapling the programme together, require a lot of time. Last night was spent tackling this task, with three of us sat on a makeshift assembly line for a good 2 hours!
The choice of music is obviously one of the most important elements. The Around the World theme was decided upon by the young musicians, who have each been on their own journeys performing and studying abroad.
With so many countries coming together for the Football World Cup this year, we thought this theme was even more appropriate. With this in mind, we’ll be trying to add the flavour of the World Cup with the famous Girl from Ipanema, sung in its original language of Portuguese – which is of course the native language of Brazil. This will be accompanied with another special guest, Andrew Sharp, who will be adding some Latin guitar rhythms.
Opera Sulis will be contributing as supporting artists in this particular concert, but it will be very special to hear Susan and Rebecca, mother and daughter, sing two operatic duets, Sull’aria from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and the Flower Duet from Lakmé. Nick Goodall will be performing Grieg Norwegian piano duet no. 1 with Jacob Byrne as well as accompanying. As part of her programme, Emma will be even be performing an improvisation by a Japanese composer, Ryo Noda.
Even the wine for the bar will be continuing the international theme, with an Italian Pinot Grigio and a French Merlot being provided by the Bell Inn at Lacock!
We’ve attached a poster with the details – we hope to see some of you there!
Opera Sulis 