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The 2024 London Song Festival Autumn Season:

Class of 1874: A Celebration of Composers, Poets,

and a Singer, born 150 years ago

All the concerts take place at Hinde Street Methodist Church W1U 2QJ in the heart of London’ West End; the nearest tube stations are Bond Street and Oxford Circus. 

Concert 1: Erich Wolff - Friday 1st November, 7pm
Ellen Pearson - mezzo-soprano
Sebastian Hill - tenor
Nigel Foster - piano

Erich Wolff was not only a fantastic composer of over 200 songs, he was also (and because of this he is very close to my heart) known as a supremely sensitive accompanist, who was the first choice as duo partner of all the foremost Lieder singers of his day. He died tragically young in  March 1913, age just 38, in New York, on tour with the great Elena Gerhardt, following surgery on his ear. As an Austrian Jew, his music was completely suppressed by the Nazis, and he has since sunk into total obscurity. In his day his songs were well known; 18 opuses of songs were published between 1900 and 1910, a further opus and a volume of 60 collected songs were published posthumously soon after his death, but from the 1930s until very recently he was totally forgotten. Now he is making a small comeback; Universal Edition have published a single volume of songs (hopefully more to come), and a few CDs have been recorded of his songs, most notably by the American soprano Rebecca Broberg. I hope this concert will go some way towards re-establishing Erich Wolff as one of the great composers of Lieder, alongside Schubert, Schumann, Brahms. Wolff, and Richard Strauss. Come to this concert and hear for yourselves what a wonderful song composer Erich Wolff was! 

Ellen Pearson is an Oxford International Song Young Artist (2024-25), a Britten-Pears Young Artist (2024-25), Samling Artist, Shipston Song Rising Star, and Opera Holland Park Young Artist. Her recent competition successes have been First Prize in the Ashburnham English Song Competition (2024), the Charles Wood International Song Competition and the AESS Dorothy Richardson Prize for English Song. Sebastian Hill is also an Oxford International Song Young Artist and a Samling Artist, and is the winner of the 2023 AESS Patricia Routledge English Song Competition. He has sung at the Wigmore Hall, the BBC Proms, the Three Choirs Festival and for Shipston Song, and is currently studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on a scholarship. Nigel Foster has performed at Wigmore Hall, the South Bank Centre, Barbican Centre, Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Crush Bar) and across Europe as well as in North and South America, Japan, Malaysia and New Zealand, playing for singers including Roderick Williams, Ailish Tynan, Nicky Spence, Elizabeth Watts, Kate Royal, Lotte Betts-Dean, James Gilchrist, Julien Van Mellaerts, Ashley Riches, Simon Wallfisch, Louise Winter, Ruby Hughes and Elizabeth Llewellyn.

Concert 2: Reynaldo Hahn - Friday 8th November, 7pm
Maria Schellenberg - mezzo-soprano
Jack Holton - baritone
Nigel Foster - piano

The songs of Reynaldo Hahn have a charm and élégance that is unmatched in the entire Song repertoire. They have an enchantment that conjures up the atmosphere of the Parisian belle époque, even though he was born in Caracas, Venezuela. This programme brings together all of Hahn’s most beloved songs, that speak of love and ecstasy, and many an Heure Exquise.

Maria Schellenberg won the Michael Oliver Prize at the London Handel Competition in 2015, and her international career has since taken her to the Royal Operas House Covent Garden, Oper Frankfurt and the Ópera de Tenerife. She has sung at the Festival de Múver (Spain), at the Tchaikovsky Philharmonic Hall in Moscow, and with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Jack Holton studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio. He has sung roles for Opera North, Opera Holland Park the Chelsea Opera Group, British Youth Opera and with Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO.

Concert 3: Robert Frost - Friday 15th November, 7pm
Kezia Bienek - mezzo-soprano
Nicholas Lester - baritone
Nigel Foster - piano
James Crutcher - actor

The American poet Robert Frost achieved fame and recognition through poems such as 'The road not taken', and 'Stopping by woods on a snowy evening', and in fact his popularity, and the ease with which people can access and enjoy hos poetry has traditionally made him unpopular in academic and literary circles. His poetry describes American rural life in simple, direct language, and this has made him a favourite poet for composers of Song to set. This concert includes settings of his poetry by John Duke  Elliott Carter and Lowell Liebermann, and includes the world premiere of 'Frost Bites'; three songs by Juliana Hall that are dedicated to Nigel Foster, the Director of the London Song Festival.

Australian baritone Nicholas Lester studied at the Adelaide Conservatorium of Music and the National Opera Studio in London. He has since sung leading roles with Opera Holland Park (where he was voted Best Male in a Leading Role by the audience for playing Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia), State Opera of South Australia, WNO and ENO among others. Kezia Bienek has sung leading roles with Glyndebourne, Opera Holland Park, WNO and Wexford Festival, among others. James Crutcher was born in San Francisco and trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He won several awards there including the Sir John Gielgud Bursary Award, and in 2023 he won the AESS Actors' competition.

Concert 4: Mary Garden - Friday 22nd November, 7pm
Ceferina Penny - soprano
Nigel Foster - piano
Jan Carey - speaker

The Scottish soprano Mary Garden was a considerable 'celebrity' of her day; she was Debussy's favourite singer and the first Mélisande, and subsequently had a glittering career in the opera houses of France and America. She was known for her acting skills and stage presence as much as for her singing, and was the first singer to dance the Dance of the Seven Veils in Strauss' Salome - previously this had been performed by a dancer. This dance, which ended with her wearing only a body-stocking, together with the way she lasciviously kissed the severed head of John the Baptist on stage, led to this production being banned in America; sermons were preached against her by the revivalist preacher Billy Sunday, but she is said to have later won him over with an ice cream soda. Mary Garden was a fascinating character - a shameless self-publicist, who manipulated the press with great skill, always making sure that journalists were there to capture important moments in her life, and always knowing which journalist to feed some juicy snippet of gossip to. This programme comprises songs she is recorded as singing - lots of Debussy of course, including the Ariettes Oubliées and the Chansons de Bilitis, two charming songs from Reynaldo Hahn's settings of Robert Louis Stevenson's 'From a Child's Garden’ of Verses, some luscious English ballads, and other gems.

Ceferina Penny is currently a Young Artist at the National Opera Studio and a 24/25 Britten-Pears Young Artist. Her professional debut was as The Slave in the English National Opera’s latest production of Salome, at the London Coliseum. She has performed as a soloist in venues across Britain and Europe, including The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, the Conway and Cadogan Halls in London, Burgos Cathedral, Barcelona, Salamanca and Ávila. In June 2023, Ceferina was the recipient of the Audience Prize in the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards, which took place at the Wigmore Hall.

Jan Carey is a star of the West End, with television credits ranging from I Claudius to Downton Abbey and Killing Eve, and film credits including A Man for all Seasons and The Whistle Blower. 

Concert 5: AESS Prize-Winners' Concert - Saturday 23rd November, 2pm (please note the starting time)

A showcase for the winners of the five competitions organised by the Association of English Singers and Speakers: the Patricia Routledge National English Song Competition, the Dorothy Richardson English Song Prize, the Catherine Lambert Junior Prize, the Composers' Song Writing Competition, and the Concert Artistes Association Speech Prize for Actors. These prize-winning singers, actors and pianists will present a programme of English Song and spoken word, which will also include the winning entries form the Composers' Song Writing Competition.

Concert 6: Gustav Holst - Friday 29th November, 7pm
Katie Bray - mezzo-soprano
Ruairi Bowen - tenor
Nigel Foster - piano
Martin Handley - speaker 

Gustav Holst believed strongly that music is for everyone, and his teaching at Morley College and St Paul's School for Girls bears witness to this. This concert explores his life and his music, through his songs, and readings from his letters and lecture notes, revealing a man of humour, kindness, and generosity. His ever-enquiring mind can be seen from his obsession with Sanskrit texts, several of which he set to music as his 'Vedic Hymns'. Holst wasn't happy with the English translations he found, so he enrolled at the University of London to learn Sanskrit so that he could write his own translations. The programme includes two unpublished songs, one being a canon that Holst wrote for Adrian Boult's wedding in 1933.  

Katie Bray won the Audience Prize at the 2019 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, and has since sung leading roles for Opera North, ENO, WNO, Irish National Opera and Opera Holland Park among others. On the recital platform she has sung for the Oxford International Song Festival (Oxford Lieder Festival), Ryedale Festival and at Wigmore Hall. Ruairi Bowen made his debut with ENO as Earl Tolloller in Iolanthe in their 2023/2024 season. He has also sung with Lithuanian National Opera, Dubai Opera, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and at Wigmore Hall and Snape Maltings. Martin Handley is a BBC Radio 3 and World Service presenter, who has also worked as a conductor and repetiteur for ENO, The Royal Danish Opera, and Covent Garden.

Concert 7:  Amy Lowell and Gertrude Stein - Friday 6th December , 7pm
Harriet Burns - soprano
Lotte Betts-Dean - mezzo-soprano and speaker
Nigel Foster - piano

This concert celebrates two American poets, born just six days apart in 1874 - Amy Lowell and Gertrude Stein. The programme focusses on love poems that they wrote to and about their respective life-partners; Ada Russell (Amy Lowell) and Alice B Toklas (Gertrude Stein), and is a tribute to these two female poets, and to same-sex love. The programme includes three world premieres: a song commissioned by the London Song Festival by Errollyn Wallen, recently appointed as the first black woman to hold the post of Master of the King's Music, and the first black woman to have her work performed at the BBC Proms; she also wrote the music for the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics and Paralympics in 2012. The programme also includes the premieres of 'Nine Steins', a sequence of quotations from Gertrude Stein that have been set to music by the American composer Juliana Hall, and of two linked songs written by the trans activist, composer, singer and educator CN Lester.

Harriet Burns is an acclaimed interpreter of song, having performed at Wigmore Hall, Philharmonie Luxembourg, the Oxford International Song Festival, Leeds Lieder Festival, the International Lied Festival Zeist, Ryedale Festival and de Singel. She is a City Music Foundation Artist, a Samling Insitute Artist, and a Britten-Pears Young Artist, and her competition wins have included the German Lied Award at the 2022 Concours Musical International de Montréal (Art Song division) where she also won a Vocal Residency at McGill and Montréal Universities, the Compulsory Song Prize and Recital Prize at the International Vocal Competition in 's-Hertogenbosch and First Prize at the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards at the Wigmore Hall. Lotte Betts-Dean is a regular favourite at LSF concerts. She has recently been announced as the winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award 2024 and is a former Young Artist of the Oxford Lieder Festival (now Oxford International Song Festival). She has sung at the Aldeburgh Festival, Lewes Festival of Song, Wigmore Hall, leading roles for Opera Holland Park, the Grand Théâtre Genève, the Bayerische Staatsoper, and the Sydney Opera House.