Event Details

RSAMD Pre-concert Recital

2.15pm in the Recital Rooms, City Halls

Royal Scottish Academy Song Studio

Stephen Chambers - Tenor

James Rock - Baritone

Timothy Dean - Piano

Programme

GERALD FINZI (1901-1956)

Poems by Thomas Hardy

Childhood among the ferns

Before and after Summer

Channel Firing

BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913-1976)

Winter Words, Op.52

Poems by Thomas Hardy

I. At Day-close in November

II. Midnight on the Great Western (or the Journeying Boy)

III. Wagtail and Baby (A Satire)

IV. The Little Old Table

V. The Choirmaster's Burial (or the Tenor Man's Story)

VI. Proud Songsters (Thrushes, Finches and Nightingales)

VII. At the Railway Station, Upway (or The Convict and Boy with the Violin)

VIII. Before Life and After

Royal Scottish Academy Song Studio

The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama has for many years held an international reputation for producing exciting young singers, many of whom are currently performing around the world. Song Studio is an initiative designed to enhance the profile of song within the Academy and to extend its accessibility to a wide range of audiences in Scotland and beyond.

A pool of advanced singers and pianists presents a series of creatively-themed concerts at the RSAMD through the year, with each concert involving several singers. Presentation is intended to be both informal and informative, with a view to breaking down some of the barriers which songs in a foreign language may present to some people.

About The Performers:

Timothy Dean studied music at Reading University, and then piano and conducting at the Royal College of Music. He then became Chorus Master and Head of Music for Kent Opera where he worked for ten years, conducting a wide repertoire on tour in the UK and abroad, including a cycle of the Britten Church Parables performed at a number of UK festivals in the 1990s. In 1987 he was appointed the first Music Director of British Youth Opera. Since then he has been instrumental in developing the company into a vital part of the national infrastructure for training young singers and musicians to an advanced level, as well as conducting over twenty productions and many concerts for the company. He was also conductor of the London Bach Society in the late 1980s, and was Music Director of The Opera Company from 1990 to 1994. In 1990 he spent a year as Assistant Music Director and Chorus Master with the New D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, conducting on tour in the UK and USA, after which he made company debuts for English National Opera (Oedipus Rex/Bluebeard's Castle) and Scottish Opera (The Barber of Seville).

In 1994 he was appointed Head of Opera at the RSAMD in Glasgow, in charge of new postgraduate courses in opera training for singers and repetiteurs. Since moving to Scotland, he has also worked with the RSNO, the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, The Paragon Ensemble, the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and Edinburgh Choral Union, as well as giving concerts with the Symphony Orchestras of both the Junior and Senior Academy, conducting over forty new opera productions in Glasgow and Edinburgh. From 2000 to 2006 he was Artistic Director of British Youth Opera, of which he is now a Vice-President. He has been Director of the RSNO Chorus since 2006 and is Artistic Director of the RSAMD Song Studio. He has also been recently involved in a variety of collaborative projects with the Conservatoire in Rostov-on-Don in Russia, conducting concert performances of Strauss¡¦ Ariadne auf Naxos and Britten's Phaedra in 2009 and Prokofiev's War and Peace in 2010. He continues to be active as coach, accompanist, adjudicator and conductor.

New Zealand/British tenor Stephen Chambers holds a BSc in Physiology, as well as a BMus (Hons) from the University of Otago, a GPD (Opera) from the Boston Conservatory, and an MMus(Opera) from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. This summer Stephen made his Royal Albert Hall debut as a soloist in Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Donald Runnicles. Stephen also made his Usher Hall debut as a Trojan Man in Mozart's Idomeneo with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Sir Roger Norrington. Following this, Stephen worked for Clonter Opera in educational workshops, before returning to Glasgow where he is now on the prestigious MOpera course at the RSAMD. Stephen studies with Stephen Robertson, as the recipient of the ABRSM International postgraduate scholarship. Stephen is also supported by Sir James Caird's Travelling Scholarships Trust. Operatic roles include Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia and Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw (Britten), Tamino in Die Zauberflote (Mozart), and Lt Bonner in War amd Peace (Prokofiev). He also premiered the role of Daumer in Kaspar Hauser: Child of Europe by Rory Boyle. Stephen has participated in prestigious summer programs throughout his studies, including Patricia Hurley¡¦s opera tour in Italy, Seagle Music Colony in upstate New York, Centre d'Arts Orford in Quebec, Flagstaff in Fidenza, and the Aberdeen International Youth Festival. This year Stephen will appear in the RSAMD's productions of The Cunning

Little Vixen, and the title role in Albert Herring. Stephen won the LB Miller Operatic Aria Competition in Christchurch and the ODT aria in Dunedin in 2005, the Nelson Sealord Aria Competition in 2006 and the Wellington Regional Aria Competition in 2008.

Following studies at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, Jamie Rock is now studying opera at the RSAMD with Stephen Robertson. He has participated in masterclasses with Thomas Allen, Ann Murray, Marie McLaughlin, Elly Ameling, Dennis O'Neill and Graham Johnson. Jamie's opera roles include Figaro (RSAMD), Bartly in Riders to the Sea, Aeneas, Prince Yamadori Madama Butterfly, Masetto Don Giovanni, Count Ceprano Rigoletto and Giuseppe Gondoliers. Concert highlights include performances at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Festival Theatre Edinburgh, Theatre Royal Glasgow, National Concert Hall, Dublin, Ulster Hall, Belfast, and Salzburg Cathedral. Concert works performed include Bach's St John Passion and B minor Mass, Handel's Messiah and the Requiems of both Faure and Brahms. Jamie is extremely grateful for the support of Bloxham Stockbrokers, Derek Hill Foundation, Sir James Caird Scholarship and Arts Council of Ireland.