Next Concert

NEXT CONCERT:

Spring Concert 2012

Saturday, 12th May at 7.45 p.m.

Venue:-

St Mary's Church, Marsh Road, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, UK
For the location of St. Mary's church click here.

Programme :-

"A Garland of English Music"

features pieces by Purcell, Britten, Parry and Elgar. The programme includes celebratory and commemorative music suitable for the Diamond Jubilee year, including Come Ye Sons Of Art (Purcell), Rejoice In The Lamb (Britten), I Was Glad (Parry) and an arrangement of the National Anthem by Sir Edward Elgar. In addition the three soloists will each sing a typically English song of their own choosing.

Conductor :-

Terry Saunders

(See below for biography)

Guest Soloists:-

Soprano:- Suzanne Walker
(See below for biography)
Mezzo-soprano:- Julia Batchelor-Walsh
(See below for biography)
Sebastian Valentine: Bass
(See below for biography)

Choir:-

The Burnham Music Group

Organ:-

Tom Potten

(See below for biography)

_______

For ticket information click here.

For the location of St. Mary's church click here.

For details of the Burnham Music Group click here.

BIOGRAPHIES:-

OUR CONDUCTOR AND MUSICAL DIRECTOR :-
Terry Saunders: Terry Saunders studied at Bristol University and with John Carol Case (voice) and Pamela Speed-Andrews (piano). He has pursued a varied musical career over the last 30 years, as an opera & oratorio singer, music theatre & cabaret performer, organist & choirmaster, composer and conductor. As well as many roles in Mozart operas, he has sung Escamillo (Carmen), Dulcamara (L'Elisir d'Amore), Kecal (The Bartered Bride), Uberto (La Serva Padrona) and the title role in Don Pasquale. Terry has appeared as an oratorio soloist in more than 100 concerts - including 16 performances of Stainer's Crucifixion - and he has had the privilege of working with Sir David Willcocks on several occasions. In music theatre, Terry's favourite role is Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady. He has performed this role in three productions, one of which - at Richmond Theatre - won him an Arts Council award. He has conducted several musicals, including South Pacific at Epsom Playhouse and Sweet Charity at The Secombe Theatre, Sutton. Terry regularly acts as an accompanist to other singers, and is a senior house pianist at the Ardingly International Music School . Terry was Director of Music at St John’s , Stoneleigh, from 2000 to 2006, for whom he composed liturgical settings and several hymns. Terry also appeared for nine years as one of the 'boys with the obedient feet' in the cabaret group Vamp 'til Ready; now he performs his own one-man shows, including "An Evening with Noel Coward" and "I Get A Kick Out Of Cole". King Arthur was his first concert as musical director of the Burnham Music Group.

Julia Batchelor-Walsh – Mezzo-soprano: Julia graduated with a music degree from the Welsh College of Music and Drama where she studied singing with Elizabeth Vaughan. She was a post-graduate at the Royal College of Music for two years where she studied with Margaret Kingsley.
Julia is an experienced concert singer and recitalist both nationally and internationally. She has established a reputation as a singer of great versatility, performing a diverse range of styles and genres. She has appeared as soloist in much of the ‘Classical’ concert repertoire, from Bach to composers of the present day, as well as in music by ‘American Songbook’ composers such as Porter, Kern and Gershwin.
Julia has performed throughout Europe and North America and in 1999 she made her concert debut in Australia, giving two recitals in Sydney. She made her debut at the Royal Festival Hall in 2003 in Mahler’s 8^th Symphony with The Hertfordshire Chorus and Crouch End Festival Chorus. In a series of concerts at the Barbican with CEFC, she has performed Mozart’s Requiem, Songs from Liquid Days by Phillip Glass, Elgar’s The Apostles, Joby Talbot’s Finding Silence, Stravinsky’s Les Noces, The Glagolskaja Mass by Janacek and Beethoven’s Mass in C.
Her TV credits include the documentary series Behind Bars for BBC2 and the BBC1 drama Final Demand.
In October 2009 she appeared with Synergy Vocals and Steve Reich in a performance of the composer’s Music for Eighteen, to a packed Royal Festival Hall, receiving a standing ovation in what was one of the most exciting concerts of her career.
Alongside her solo career, Julia is proud to be a freelance member of the BBC Singers, and retains a love of choral singing that began in her school choir some 30 years ago. Her association with this extraordinary group has enabled her to work with many of the world’s greatest conductors, composers, ensembles and orchestras: Boulez, Rattle, Noseda, Tortelier and Baremboim to name but a few. In January 2010 she was honoured to be one of just 24 Singers to spend three days working with Sir David Willcocks, in two programmes for Radio 3’s ‘The Choir’, celebrating the musical life and the 90^th birthday of this remarkable man. Julia is also an original member of Aurora Nova.
In May and June 2011 she gave a series of 12 performances of Reich’s Music for Eighteen with Synergy Vocals at the Paris Opera.
This Autumn she has travelled to Bonn, Dusseldorf and Paris for further performances of Music for 18, and has recorded a series of Christmas Carols with the BBC Singers for broadcast on Radio 3’s breakfast programme during the Christmas period.
Julia is an experienced singing teacher and has private practices in London, Hertfordshire and Burnham-on-Crouch, where she lives with husband David and son Sebastian. Vocal coach for the hugely successful Mattefer Music Week, she is now vocal coach for Mackensie Music, and is guest vocal coach for Highgate Choral Society and The Hertfordshire Chorus.

Suzanne Walker – Soprano: Suzanne studied at the University of Birmingham where she graduated with a BA (Hons) degree in Music, Drama and Dance. She studied singing at the Birmingham Conservatoire and with Annette Thompson in London. Her oratorio experience includes Handel’s Messiah and The Passion of Christ, Fauré’s Requiem, Haydn’s The Creation and Passion of Christ, Mozart’s Requiem and Exultate Jubilate, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Leighton’s Crucifixus Pro Nobis, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Brahms’ Requiem and Schubert’s Stabat Mater for the St Peter’s Singers, Peterborough Cathedral, Bury St Edmunds Cathedral, Ramsey, Kings Lynn and Ely Choral Societies, Blackheath Choir, and St George’s choir in St Anne’s Cathedral Belfast amongst others. Operatic roles include Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro and Silberklang in Der Schauspieldirektor by Mozart, Lauretta in Bizet’s Dr Miracle, Atalanta in Xerxes and Ino in Semele by Handel, and Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, for companies such as Opera Experience, Opera Da Camera, Morley Opera, Definitely Divas and Starlight Opera. She has created the roles for a number of new contemporary operas including Heather in Lunch at the Cooked Goose and Elizabeth I in Welcome to Purgatory by Betty Roe & Marian Lines, as well as Spem and the song cycle The Year of the Green Parrots by Joe St Johanser. She recently made a recording with the London Sinfonietta of a new opera The Tempest by Joe St Johanser playing the part of Trincula. She also gives recital concerts and performs regularly with Three in a bar. When not singing Suzanne works in contemporary dance and is Director of Programming at Sadler’s Wells.

Sebastian Valentine - Bass: Sebastian Valentine, Baritone, was educated at King Edward’s School, Bath and graduated from The Royal College of Music, where he studied singing with Ashley Stafford. He has received teaching and coaching from many distinguished international artists, including Graziella Schiutti, Margaret Cable, David Ward, Roger Vignoles, David Owen-Norris, Ryland Davies and Mollie Petrie, and has performed in master classes with Sarah Walker, Roger Vignoles, Steven Varcoe, Michael Chance and Sir David Wilcocks. Sebastian was described as “a wonderfully pompous Poo-Bah” in a Charles’ Court Opera production of Sullivan’s, The Mikado. Other roles he has performed include Schaunard, La Bohème with Sevenoaks Opera, Guccio, Gianni Schicchi, for the Benjamin Britten International Opera School, Cox, Cox and Box, Louis,The Wandering Scholar (Holst), Leporello and Don Alfonso Cosi fan Tutte, for Minatour Opera, Dick Deadeye, HMS Pinafore and Dr Bartolo, Barber of Seville for Charles Court Opera, Papageno, for Priory Opera, the covers of Mr Page and Falstaff, Merry Wives of Windsor (Nicolai), for Opera South, Speaker, Second Priest and Second Armed Man, Magic Flute for Opera Project, Dick Deadeye, HMS Pinafore in Wales, Bouncer, Cox and Box and Grinder, The Zoo (Sullivan) for the Sullivan Society. He has also appeared in Sullivan’s Yeomen of the Guard, Mozart’s Magic Flute and Britten’s A Midsummer Nights Dream with British Youth Opera and Britten’s Noye’s Fludde with King Edward’s School and toured the UK and the USA with Carl Rosa Opera covering the role of The Pirate King. Sebastian sings regularly as a soloist with choral societies across the UK and has performed the Fauré and Brahms’ Requiems, Bach Magnificat, Bminor Mass and St.John Passion, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle, Handel’s Messiah, Puccini’s Missa di Gloria and Mozart’s Coronation Mass. In 2009 he performed in Un Giorno di Regno for Opera della Luna/Stanley Hall/Iford Arts and sang the role of Renato, Ballo in Maschera in Education Workshops for Opera 2005, Cork. Forthcoming engagements include the role of Dr Grenvil, La Traviata for Riverside Opera and the roles of Fiorello/Captain/Notary, The Barber of Seville for Iford Opera.

Tom Potten: was born in 1981 and has lived in Essex most of his life. At the age of 7 he started piano lessons under local teacher Ray Clarke, and with the guidance of his influential school music teacher, Peter Dale, he developed his enthusiasm for music. In 2002 he gained his Bachelor of Music degree from the London College of Music and Media, having studied with composer Kit Turnbull and Jazz musician Eddie Harvey. It was here that his passion for contemporary music really began. Since then he has been working primarily as a piano teacher and session musician around the county, gaining Yamaha certified music teacher status in 2003. He also recorded accompaniments for Spartan Press Publications in the same year and next year he will work with different publishers on a new series of books.