Thursday 6 October 2011
Emma Bell - Soprano
Emma Bell trained at the RAM and NOS, and continues to study with Joy Mammen. Winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Prize in 1998, she was a BBC New Generation Artist in 1999. She is at the forefront of the younger generation of sopranos and is admired for her richly coloured voice and sensitive musicianship.
In 2002 she joined the Berlin Komische Oper, where she has sung Pamina Die Zauberflöte, Micaëla Carmen, Countess Le Nozze di Figaro, the title role in Alcina, Agathe Der Freischütz and Mimì La bohème. She has sung the title role in Rodelinda (Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Châtelet, Bilbao, Barbican, Vienna Konzerthaus); Female Chorus The Rape of Lucretia (Lausanne); Miss Jessel The Turn of the Screw (Geneva and Glyndebourne); Vitellia La Clemenza di Tito (ENO, Montreal); Leonore Maskarade (ROH); Violetta La traviata (ENO); Governess The Turn of the Screw (Leipzig); Alcina title-role (Opéra National de Paris); Elettra Idomeneo (La Scala, Barbican, Lisbon and Amsterdam Madrid Teatro Real).
Concert engagements include Rossini's Stabat Mater (Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Dresden, Rome and Siena with Pappano); St John Passion (Châtelet); Concerts at the Teatro Real Madrid, and for the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse; Mahler 4th Symphony with the BBC NOW and Otaka, St Matthew Passion with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Yannick Nézet-Séguin and concert performances of The Rape of Lucretia with Ticciati (Vienna and Cologne). She has also sung at the Barbican, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Royal Festival , Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, BBC Proms and Mostly Mozart Festival. She has worked with Bickett, Christie, Andrew Davis, Haim, Labadie, Mackerras, Pappano and Slatkin.
Recordings include Handel's Saul with Jacobs and two solo discs (a recital of lieder by Strauss, Marx and Walter and Handel Operatic Arias for Linn Records) both supported by an award from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust for whom she has given recitals in London, Amsterdam and Vienna. In June 2008 she gave a recital of Strauss songs with Emanuel Ax at the Wigmore Hall. Further engagements include Beethoven's 9th Symphony with Noseda at the BBC Proms, Donna Elvira Don Giovanni with Pappano (ROH), Countess at the Liceu, Barcelona, War Requiem with Pappano and the Royal Opera House Orchestra & Chorus in Birmingham, Anne Truelove The Rake's Progress at La Scala, concert performances of Mitridate with Sir Charles Mackerras for Welsh National Opera and Handel concerts with Harnoncourt at the Styriarte Festival. Recent engagements include Countess (Metropolitan Opera), Beethoven Missa Solemnis (Santa Cecilia), Donna Elvira (La Scala) and Elettra Idomeneo (ENO) and Edinburgh Festival.
Recent engagements have included Strauss Vier Letze Lieder in Iceland with the Helsinki Philharmonic, Governess Turn of the Screw (Teatro Real Madrid), Barber's Knoxville at the Casa da Musica in Porto and a Wigmore Hall recital, Leonore Fidelio (Opera North with Sir Richard Armstrong), the title role in a new commission Miss Fortune by Judith Weir (Bregenz Festival) and Mozart Requiem at the BBC Proms.
Future plans include War Requiem (Royal Flanders Philharmonic) Eva Die Meistersinger (Royal Opera House with Pappano), Tina Miss Fortune (Royal Opera House), Fox Cunning Little Vixen (Glyndebourne Festival with Jurowski), Countess Almaviva Le Nozze di Figaro (Opéra Bastille), War Requiem and Leonore Fidelio (ENO), Donna Elvira Don Giovanni (Metropolitan Opera) and Madame Lidoine Dialogues des Carmélites (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden).
Anna Tilbrook – Piano
Anna Tilbrook is one of Britain’s most exciting young pianists, with a considerable reputation in song recitals and chamber music. She made her debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1999 and has since become a regular performer at major concert halls and festivals.
Anna has worked with many leading singers including James Gilchrist, Lucy Crowe, Barbara Bonney, Sarah Tynan, Yvonne Howard, Janis Kelly, Willard White, Mark Padmore, Stephan Loges, Chris Maltman, Ian Bostridge, Christine Rice, Iestyn Davies and Gillian Keith, while also enjoying collaborations with a number of instrumentalists including Nicholas Daniel, Natalie Clein, Priya Mitchell, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Gemma Rosefield, Adrian Brendel, Harriet Mackenzie and Eleanor Fagg.
With James Gilchrist she has just released Schubert’s Die Schone Mullerin, which has received outstanding reviews and was selected as the Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, November 2009. They have also made acclaimed recordings of 20th-century English song, including Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge with the Fitzwilliam String Quartet which was a finalist in the Gramophone Awards 2008, Lennox Berkeley songs, ‘Oh Fair to See’ (Finzi’s song-cycles for tenor and piano) and ‘The Far Country (26 songs by John Jeffreys).With the Fitzwilliam she has also performed Shostakovich’s chamber music throughout the UK, Mozart Piano Concerto K.415 and the Elgar Piano Quintet.
Recent engagements have included recitals with James Gilchrist in Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Anima Mundi festival in Pisa, in the Wroclaw Cantans festival in Poland, at the Oxford Lieder Festival and the Three Choirs Festival, and a live BBC Radio 3 lunchtime recital at LSO St Luke’s. She has also given a chamber music recital in Pisa with Tedi Papavremi and Guido Corti and an acclaimed performance of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time at the St David’s Festival. With the soprano Lucy Crowe she has performed at the Wigmore Hall, QEH, Lichfield Festival and the Gower Festival.
Anna has a special association with the Two Moors Festival in Devon, where she has devised and performed a series of epic performing projects: all the Schubert song-cycles in a day in 2005; all the Schumann song-cycles in 2006; and in 2007 a day of songs by Mahler and his contemporaries.
As well as accompanying, Anna is in demand as a repetiteur, continuo player and vocal coach, working for companies including the Royal Opera, Royal Ballet, Aldeburgh Festival and the LSO. She was official accompanist and coach for the 2008 Les Azuriales Opera Festival and Singing Competition in France. For the 2006 Buxton Festival she made her conducting debut, directing Telemann’s Pimpinone from the harpsichord. For Welsh National Opera she has accompanied Angela Gheorghiu, Jose Carreras and Bryn Terfel in televised concerts.
Born in Hertfordshire, Anna studied music at York University and at the Royal Academy of Music with Julius Drake, where she was awarded a Fellowship and in 2009 became an Associate. She has also won many major international accompaniment prizes including the AESS Bluthner prize and the award for an outstanding woman musician from the ROSL. She now lives in London.
© Anna Tilbrook 2011