Yes but do you know …?
Sunday 22nd March at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, 20 National Circuit, Forrest
Sarahlouise Owens (soprano) and Colleen Rae-Gerrard (piano)
There is so very much written and not often heard! We think we know the oeuvres of so many familiar composers, yet know of so little. This fascinating concert will feature lesser known works by familiar composers, including the early works of Britten and Berlioz, and works of Korngold and Schubert. Featured will also be unknown or lesser known versions of familiar titles.
Eleanor Houston Tribute
Saturday 18th April at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, 20 National Circuit, Forrest
Eleanor Houston OAM, in collaboration with other art song devotees, founded the A.C.T. Lieder Society in 1976. The society was renamed Art Song Canberra in 2006. Eleanor served for many years as president and patron of our society, as well as being hugely active in the broader Canberra music scene and community. Eleanor died on 30th April 2014. This concert will be held to celebrate and pay tribute to Eleanor and her legacy and will feature Eleanor’s past students, colleagues and friends, singing, playing and speaking about her life, career and influence.
All welcome. Admission $10.
Love Blossoms in May
Sunday 31st May at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, 20 National Circuit, Forrest
Alexander Knight (baritone) and Kimberley Steele (piano)
The exciting Steele-Knight duo has been working together for five years now, bringing together a balance of lush and fiercely beautiful repertoire.
This concert will be no exception, featuring Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe cycle and Gerald Finzi’s Let Us Garlands Bring in addition to repertoire by Samuel Barber and others. You are invited to enjoy an indulgent afternoon and fall in love again with a sumptuous world of sound.
Soirée at St Alban’s
Sunday 21st June at 3pm
St Alban’s Church, 34 Chappell Street, Lyons
The Members’ Soirée will be a social gathering of members of Art Song Canberra in which we make music together, taking us back to the origin of Lieder societies. A small group of members will sing informally in the company of other, like-minded people. Members and their friends are cordially invited to attend. No costs are entailed. Non-members can participate by becoming a member at $25 per person.
Life, Love and Longing
Sunday 28th June at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, 20 National Circuit, Forrest
Chris McNee (baritone), Rosanna Boyd and Ruth Crabb (sopranos) and Colin Forbes (piano)
Songs depicting many emotions – love and loss, pastoral delights and calm reflection – and more. Three highly-accomplished local singers will perform Lieder by Schubert, Wolf, Brahms, Beethoven and Loewe together with songs by Michael Head and Canberra composer Calvin Bowman.
A Fleeting Fantasy
Sunday 9th August at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, 20 National Circuit, Forrest
Sonia Anfiloff (soprano), Ben Connor (baritone) and Alan Hicks (piano)
From our darkest desires and dreams, to the pictures of our imagination, fly with us to the corners of a fantastical world of dwarfs and nymphs, and love, life and death. Sonia, Ben and Alan explore a dark magical path through forests and skies with the likes of Debussy, Strauss, Ullman, Wolf and Medtner. Come and experience some soul-wrenching Lieder, wistful art song and enchanting chanson.
Art Song Canberra and Wesley Music Centre present
Masterclass by Yvonne Kenny AM for Performers of Art Song
Sunday 23rd August at 2pm
Wesley Uniting Church, National Circuit, Forrest
photo : Paul Gosney
Yvonne Kenny AM, patron of Art Song Canberra, will give a masterclass for performers of art song – singers and accompanists. The masterclass is kindly and generously sponsored by the Wesley Music Foundation.
Participants have now been selected as advanced students of art song with ambitions to advance further in the study and performance of the art form. They are Louise Keast (accompanied by Colleen Rae-Gerrard), Evan Kirby (accompanied by Alan Hicks), Chloe Lankshear (accompanied by Calvin Bowman), Jade McFaul (accompanied by Calvin Bowman), Lachlan McIntyre (accompanied by Alan Hicks) and Jessica Harper (accompanied by Lucus Allerton).
Audience members will be welcome at the masterclass which will offer a great and rare opportunity to witness Ms Kenny at work with rising stars of art song. Admission: $30, concessions $25, full-time students $15. Bookings: http://www.trybooking.com/IDGF or at the door. Booking enquiries: Wesley Music Centre: 02 6232 7248.
Night’s Caressing Grip
Sunday 13th September at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, National Circuit, Forrest
Rachael Duncan (soprano) and Anthony Smith (piano)
In art song from the 19th and early 20th centuries, this concert will explore themes of devotion, loss, yearning and homecoming. Music will be by Schumann, Grieg, Hahn, Svendsen and Britten (including his song cycle, On This Island).
Love and Harmony Combine
Sunday 18th October at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, 20 National Circuit, Forrest
Christina Wilson (mezzo-soprano) and Alan Hicks (piano)
Creative relationships have given birth to musical masterpieces throughout the ages. Celebrate the inspiration of human partnership in songs from Robert and Clara Schumann’s joint work Liebesfruhling Op37/Op12, Francis Poulenc’s Le travail du Peintre, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Four Last Songs (settings of poems by his wife Ursula), and the Australian premiere of David Matthew’s The Book of Hours, commissioned and first performed at the Wigmore Hall, London by this concert’s husband and wife duo.
Soirée at St Alban’s
Sunday 25th October at 3pm
St Alban’s Church, 34 Chappell Street, Lyons
The Members’ Soirée will be a social gathering of members of Art Song Canberra in which we make music together, taking us back to the origin of Lieder societies. A small group of members will sing informally in the company of other, like-minded people. Members are cordially invited to attend. No costs are entailed. Non-members can participate by becoming a member at $25 per person.
Dance, Sing, Love, Live!
Sunday 22nd November at 3pm
Wesley Music Centre, National Circuit, Forrest
Louise Page OAM (soprano) and Phillipa Candy (piano) with guest artists Caitlin McAnulty (oboe) and Rachel Best-Allen (clarinet)
A program of songs expressing the joys of life. Louise Page and Phillipa Candy will explore in song some of life’s greatest pleasures. Dance to the rhythms of life. Be intoxicated, seduced and sated by life’s abundance. Music by Strauss, Berlioz, Mahler, Calvin Bowman and featuring Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne.
The Artists
With a broad range of performing experience, Sarahlouise Owens’ singing career has been largely focussed on stage repertoire and sacred music as well as the art song repertoire. She is a graduate of the ANU School of Music (Hons) and Royal Northern College of Music Manchester. She has studied with various prestigious singing teachers in both Australia and Europe including in masterclasses with such noted artists as Brigitte Fassbaender, Renata Scotto, Nelly Miricioiu and Jane Manning. She has also had success in significant singing competitions, most markedly becoming semi-finalist in the prestigious Belgian Reine Elisabeth, being the sole representative of both Australia and UK.
Sarahlouise has worked extensively in Europe including for the Radio Choir in Cologne, Theater Hagen, Brussels’ La Monnaie, Paris Châtelet and the theatres of Frankfurt and Hamburg. Most significantly she was a consistent member of the ensemble of the Wagner Summer Festival in Bayreuth where she sang the role of an Edeldame in Lohengrin and covered a Blumenmädchen in Parsifal.
Colleen Rae-Gerrard’s career as accompanist and concert pianist began with studies in Europe with Karl Ulrich Schnabel and Paul Badura-Skoda. In New Zealand she has performed extensively with Dame Malvina Major, Anthea Moller, Ronald Woodcock and other eminent singers and instrumentalists. As a concert pianist Colleen has played in Australia, Malaysia, Brunei, Estonia and Europe and made many recordings on CD and Radio. From 1992 – 2005 she was a lecturer, accompanist and repetiteur at the Australian National University School of Music where she was associated with many young musicians, in opera productions, graduation recitals and embassy concerts. She worked with the first Wesley Scholars and served on the Wesley Music Foundation as the School of Music representative. Colleen also established the first fortepiano courses at ANU.
Colleen returned to New Zealand in 2005, living in Hawke’s Bay, continuing her active concert and teaching career. She was Director of Music at St Matthew’s Anglican Church in Hastings and a Trustee for the NZ Singing School. Back in Canberra in 2011 Colleen taught fortepiano at the ANU and accompanied student recitals on fortepiano. She now teaches piano at the ANU School of Music and at Wesley Music Centre, gives concerts and lectures and plays the organ at Wesley and at St Paul’s Church in Manuka.
Alexander Knight has recently completed an Advanced Diploma of Opera at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, having already graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Performance. He has performed with many Australian ensembles in venues around NSW and the ACT, including Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Sydney Chamber Choir, Sydney University Graduate Choir and the Song Company. In 2013 Alexander received the audience prize and was a finalist in the IFAC Australian Singing Competition, and sang the role of Aeneas alongside Fiona Campbell in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with Sydney Philharmonia.
Operatic roles have included John Brooke in Adamo’s Little Women, Le Podestat in Bizet’s Le Docteur Miracle, Bob in Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief, Figaro in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Aeneas in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Uberto in Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona, Arthur/Officer 3 in Peter Maxwell-Davies’ The Lighthouse and the Forester in Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen. Concert appearances have included Britten’s War Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, Bach’s St. John Passion, Magnificat and Christmas Oratorio, Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Paulus, Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on Christmas Carols, the Requiems of Faure and Mozart, Schubert’s Mass in E-flat, Handel’s Messiah and Saul, Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai and Nelson Mass, Beethoven’s Mass in C and Ninth Symphony, Britten’s Rejoice In The Lamb, Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers, and Grieg’s Peer Gynt with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Vibrant pianist and educator Kimberley Steele is a musically sensitive, virtuosic and energetic solo and collaborative artist. In 2013 she performed in Canberra with notable and upcoming artists including cellists David Pereira and Jack Hobbs, sopranos Louise Page and Rachael Thoms, as a soloist with the National Capital Orchestra and with various ensembles including the Canberra Choral Society. Having graduated with first class honours and as Margaret Smiles Accompaniment Competition winner from the Australian National University, Kimberley went on to be awarded the Geoffrey Parsons Australian Scholarship and a Graduate Diploma in Accompaniment from Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Drawn to collaborative pianism, she was subsequently appointed Head of Accompaniment at the Conservatorium High School. During her time in Sydney, Kimberley worked with numerous musical organisations including Sydney Philharmonia and Sydney Sinfonia in addition to working with many tertiary vocal and instrumental students.
Kimberley has a Masters of Teaching degree and since returning to Canberra she has been lecturing in Creative Arts Education at the Australian Catholic University in addition to freelancing as a pianist, teacher, conductor and guest lecturer. Her latest performance project has been forming the foray quintet, inspired by the beautiful repertoire available for piano quintets. For more information and upcoming events, please see her website at www.kimberleysteele.com.
Chris McNee has been performing in shows around Canberra for many years now. He performed as Dr Dulcamara in Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love and Papageno in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. His performance as Private Willis in Queanbeyan Players’ production of Iolanthe in 2012 won him a Judge’s Choice award in the Canberra Area Theatre Awards. Chris also has performed in countless concerts, recitals and performances with both CAMRA (Canberra Academy of Music and Related Arts) and Canberra Opera Workshop. Chris is currently studying at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music.
Rosanna Boyd has performed in seven amateur theatre productions in Canberra, most recently as Marsinah in Kismet for Queanbeyan Players. She has thoroughly enjoyed singing as a hobby since 2006 and over the years has sung in choirs, eisteddfods and music theatre. In recent years she has appeared in shows such as Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables and Chicago.
Ruth Crabb has studied singing with Pat Davey since 2002. She was a member of The Resonants from 2007 to 2010 and has been a chorister with Wesley Uniting Church since 2009. She was a guest soloist with The Llewellyn Choir in 2011. Ruth has competed regularly for many years in the open sections of the Australian National Eisteddfod and has won several first prizes. She has performed with several Canberra music theatre companies, most recently in Supa‘s Titanic in 2012.
Colin Forbes graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He became Lecturer in Piano at the Conservatorium and pianist and percussionist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He later joined the Australian Opera as a repetiteur and has also worked with other leading concert organisations including the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Synergy and the Australia Ensemble.
A study tour of Germany took Colin to the Essen Hochschule to study piano with Paul Badura Skoda. Colin subsequently taught at the Music School in Oldenburg, Germany and gave numerous concerts in that country. On returning to Australia he became Head of Keyboard at Ascham School in Sydney. He moved to Canberra in 1992 to take up the position of repetiteur at the Canberra School of Music. Colin gave sonata recitals with the violinist Erich Binder (Concert Master of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra) on both of his visits to Australia.
In 1998 Colin was appointed founding Director of the Canberra Academy of Music and Related Arts (CAMRA), where he is currently Artistic Director and principal piano teacher. Under CAMRA’s auspices, Colin has performed the complete piano sonatas of Mozart, prepared the music and staging of award winning productions of several Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, The Beggar’s Opera, the liturgical opera Ordo Virtutum by Hildegard von Bingen, and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.
Colin has given many solo keyboard recitals and performances with Canberra orchestras and choirs. In association with St Philip’s Church, he has prepared and conducted numerous orchestral masses and directed performances of Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s St John Passion.
In November 2008, Colin gave a recital of piano works by Ludwig van Beethoven in memory of the Rev. Rob Lamerton, rector of St Philip’s and long-time friend of CAMRA. Colin played Beethoven’s Rondo in G Op.5 no.2, Polonaise Op.89 and Sonata no.4 in E flat.
In 2010 Sonia Anfiloff completed a Master’s degree in Music at the Australian National University, majoring in voice performance, under the tutelage of Christina Wilson and Alan Hicks. In that year she also performed the role of Dido and was awarded third prize in the Australian National Eisteddfod Aria Competition.
Sonia has performed as a soloist in a number of requiems, masses and passions. She performed in all of the ANU School of Music operas during her study there, including Sly in the world premiere of Grimm and the Blue Crown Owl, written by Josh McHugh, and Minna in Rautavaara’s Gift of the Magi. 2009 marked the beginning of Sonia’s touring career, when she revisited her role as a Dame in Co-Opera’s production of The Magic Flute.
Currently living in Vienna, Sonia is furthering her vocal studies with international teachers and coaches. In 2012 Sonia had the opportunity to perform in two university recitals including Strauss’s Four Last Songs. In 2013 Sonia was awarded first prizes in the Australian National Eisteddfod and the Orange Eisteddfod and was a quarter-finalist in the Sydney Eisteddfod. 2013-14 also saw Sonia performing her first role in Vienna – Elisabetta in Verdi’s Don Carlo. Sonia has appeared twice for Art Song Canberra, most recently with Ben Connor in 2012.
The Australian baritone Ben Connor graduated with the degree of Master of Music in Voice from the Australian National University, where he was the recipient of the Harmony Endowment scholarship. From 2010, when he moved to Vienna, he furthered his studies at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst (University for Music and Performing Arts) in Vienna, under the tutelage of Sebastian Vittucci and Uwe Theimer, until he became a member of the inaugural “Junges Ensemble” at Theater an der Wien.
Since leaving the University Ben has continued to cultivate his vocal ability under the guidance of Carol Blaickner-Mayo. He was the winner of the 2010 Aria Competition in both the Australian National Eisteddfod and the Orange Eisteddfod, as well as being the 2011 recipient of the Richard Wagner Stipendium Bayreuth prize from “Klassik Mania”(Vienna).
In 2013 he was Musical America’s “New Artist of the Month: August”.
In 2012 Ben became a member of Theater an der Wien’s Young Ensemble. As part of the ensemble he has performed the roles of Slook (Rossini: La cambiale di matrimonio), Marcello Dandini and Amazonier (Kagel: Mare Nostrum) in the Kammeroper Vienna, as well as Guccio (Puccini: Gianni Schicci), Truchseß von Waldburg (Hindemith: Mathis der Maler), Coryphée (Rossini: Le comte Ory), Zweiter Gefangener (Beethoven: Fidelio) and as Baron Douphol (Verdi: La traviata) at Theater an der Wien. His stage repertoire also includes Conte Almaviva, Fiorello (Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia) and Schubert – eine Winterwanderung at Schauspielhaus Wien. In September 2014 he became a member of the ensemble at the Volksoper Vienna performing the roles of Marcelo, Stefano (Donizetti: Viva la Mamma) and Freddy (Loewe: My Fair Lady).
In Australia Ben has performed as a recitalist for Art Song Canberra and as a soloist in the Canberra International Music Festival and for many choral societies. He has also performed concerts in Austria, Estonia, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands.
Alan Hicks is one of Australia’s foremost vocal coaches and accompanists. He is Director of the University of Canberra Chorale and a vocal coach in the Opera Unit at Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Alan performs regularly around Australia in recitals and Festivals with leading national and international artists.
In collaboration with the Friends of Opera he coordinates high-level performance opportunities for young professional singers at embassies and consular venues around Canberra. Theatrical credits include musical preparation for Albert Herring, Dido and Aeneas, Grimm and the Blue Crown Owl, Die Zauberflöte, Suor Angelica/Gianni Schicchi, Die Fledermaus, and chorus master for Tosca, The Barber of Seville, La Traviata and From a Black Sky. In 2013 he made his stage debut at the Street Theatre as Alain/Claude in the award-winning Bijou, starring and written by Chrissie Shaw, with regional tours and a return season in September 2015.
Alan performs in fortepiano duo partnership with Geoffrey Lancaster AM. Their recent performance of Mozart’s Sonata in F major K497 for the Royal Schools Music Club in Perth was reviewed by Neville Cohn as: “…a performance of highest order, the players shaping to a myriad of subtleties like fine wine to a goblet.”
Sydney-born Yvonne Kenny AM is one of the most distinguished sopranos of her generation. She made her operatic debut and won the Kathleen Ferrier Award in 1975, after which she joined the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden where she remained a member of the company until 1996. Both internationally and with Opera Australia she built an enviable reputation as a dazzling interpreter of works by Handel, Mozart, Donizetti, Britten and more recently for her interpretations of the Richard Strauss heroines. She has also appeared regularly in concert in both symphonic and recital repertoire throughout Europe, North America and Australia. Australian performances include national tours for Musica Viva, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Brandenburg Orchestra as well as regular guest appearances with the Australian symphony orchestras in a broad range of repertoire.
She has a discography of more than 60 international titles to her credit and is internationally recognised for her recordings of French and Italian ‘bel canto’ repertoire. She was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1989 for services to music and conferred an Honorary Doctorate in Music by the University of Sydney in 1999. Yvonne is currently a Professor of Voice at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Originally from Canberra, Rachael Duncan received her Graduate Diploma of Music from the Queensland Conservatorium in Brisbane. During her studies, she joined the chorus of Opera Queensland, with whom she later debuted as Norina and subsequently sang the roles of Ida and Rosina. Moving to London in 1998, she performed with the Wexford Festival Opera in Ireland, London City Opera, Central Festival Opera in Northhampton and Kentish Opera. With London City Opera, she toured the USA singing the role of Queen of the Night in their production of The Magic Flute.
From 2001 to 2006, Rachael enjoyed five very productive years in Germany, where she was contracted to the Stadttheater, Gießen, for two years and the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater, Schwerin, for three years. In Gießen, Rachael’s repertoire included Zerbinetta, Rosina, Martha, Frasquita and Stella in the German premiere of Streetcar Named Desire. In Schwerin, Rachael sang Blonde, Oscar, Arsena, Romilda, Gilda, Queen of the Night, Nanetta and Musetta. For her performances as Gilda and Queen of the Night, Rachael was awarded the Conrad Ekhof Award in 2005 for Outstanding Performances by a young artist, an award given by the Friends of the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater, Schwerin. Rachael has also appeared in concerts and oratorio in England, Australia, Germany, Italy, the USA and Fiji Islands.
Rachael returned to Canberra in 2006. Since then she has been a regular performer with Stopera including Opera by the Lake in 2007 and 2008, in several concerts with the National Capital Orchestra, in various benefit concerts including a concert at the Sydney Town Hall with many of the stars of Opera Australia. She has also given recitals for Art Song Canberra and appeared in opera workshops at the Street Theatre. Rachael was part of the Canberra centenary celebrations with the role of Amelia in the premiere of the chamber opera From a Black Sky by Sandra France at the Street Theatre. At the end of 2013 Rachael performed in The Company of Heaven by Benjamin Britten with the Llewellyn Choir.
Anthony Smith is a Canberra-based pianist, musicologist, composer and arranger. As a pianist, he has performed in Australia, England, Germany, New Caledonia, New Zealand, the USA, and Sweden. Anthony is répétiteur of three major Canberra choirs: Canberra Choral Society, The Llewellyn Choir, and the ANU Choral Society. He often appears in concert with these choirs, either as piano soloist or keyboard continuo.
Anthony has worked as an accompanist for the ANU School of Music for the past fifteen years, performing hundreds of assessable recitals with undergraduate and postgraduate students. Although he accompanies all instruments, Anthony has a particular preference for woodwind accompaniment. In September–October 2011, Anthony was an official accompanist for the Australian Flute Festival, performing in recital with international artists such as Molly Barth and Alexa Still.
In December 2004, Anthony released the CD A Year in Paris with clarinettist Nicole Canham on the Move label. Anthony made his concerto debut in July 2005, playing Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor with the National Capital Orchestra. In July 2007, Anthony gave a recital in conjunction with the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) retrospective of the artist George W. Lambert. This recital included the Piano Sonata of Constant Lambert (the artist’s son). Anthony’s continuing interest in the life and works of Constant Lambert developed into a research topic for his doctoral dissertation, submitted at ANU in 2012. The dissertation investigates the stylistic means whereby Lambert expresses the æsthetic notion of the Dionysian in two of his ballets, Horoscope and Tiresias, and the choral masque Summer’s Last Will and Testament.
In July 2009, Anthony attended the Sixth International Conference on Music Since 1900 at Keele University, Staffordshire, England, where he presented a paper on Lambert and ragtime. In August 2009, Anthony gave a recital of works by Berg, Dale, and Rachmaninoff in conjunction with the NGA Frederick McCubbin exhibition. In March 2012, Anthony participated in piano duet performances of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony at the National Library of Australia, given in conjunction with the Handwritten manuscripts exhibition.
Anthony has also composed music for theatre. Together with Maike Brill, Anthony wrote The Will to Freedom, a music-theatre work that premièred under the direction of Joanne Schultz at The Street Theatre in August 2010 as part of its “Made in Canberra” series of independent theatre and music-theatre works.
This will be Anthony’s ninth appearance for Art Song Canberra. The most recent was with baritone Michael Lampard in 2013. Anthony’s previous appearances were with Colin Slater in 2000, Matthew Henrick in 2002 and 2005, Warwick Fyfe in 2003, Catriona DeVere in 2004, and Rebecca Ryan in 2011. Anthony also accompanied baritone Peter Smith in Art Song Canberra’s CD Beautiful.
Winner of the Australian Singing Competition’s Marianne Mathy Award and prize winning graduate of the Canberra School of Music, the Royal Northern College of Music and the National Opera Studio London, mezzo-soprano Christina Wilson has appeared in performances throughout the UK, Europe, the USA and Australia. She has sung as a soloist at the Royal Albert Hall, Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral and in recital at the Wigmore Hall, the Temple Square, USA and the Paris Conservatoire. With companies such Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Wexford Festival Opera, Belfast Opera and the State Opera of South Australia she has sung the roles of Clitemnestre, Carmen, Cenerentola, Rosina, Cherubino, Dido, Dorabella and in recent years with the Canberra Choral Society the Handel roles of David (Saul), Irene (Theodora) and Dejanira (Hercules).
Christina is broadcast regularly on ABC FM and appears as a soloist locally and nationally in concert and oratorio. She has been a featured soloist for “Voices in the Forest” at the National Arboretum, and in the Canberra Symphony Orchestra Prom Concert at Government House.
President of the ACT Chapter of ANATS, Christina regularly adjudicates and gives masterclasses nationally and internationally. She has taught singing and voice at tertiary level for many years, currently at the University of Canberra where she also runs classes for UC Music and TQI accredited voice workshops for teachers.
Soprano Louise Page OAM is one of Australia’s most highly regarded and versatile singers. She has appeared in opera, operetta, oratorio, cabaret, recital and broadcasts, for various groups throughout Australia and Europe. She won the inaugural Mietta’s Song Recital Competition, the vocal grand final of the ABC Young Performer of the Year Award, the Robert Stolz/Apex scholarship to Vienna and the Belgian Radio and Television Opera en Bel Canto Prize. She has performed throughout Europe, including roles at the Vienna State Opera as a member of the young artist program.
Based in Canberra, she performs regularly in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and regional areas. Louise has been a soloist with the Sydney, Queensland, Canberra and Central Coast Symphony Orchestras and the National Capital Orchestra. She has performed for many organisations including Musica Viva, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, the Canberra International Chamber Music Festival, Art Song Canberra, the Mackay Region Festival of Arts, and has on several occasions been a featured artist for the ABC’s Sunday Live national broadcasts. She also featured as a headline artist in the inaugural “Voices in the Forest” concert at the National Arboretum in 2011 and has made many guest appearances since then.
Louise received a Canberra Critics Circle Award for music in 2007. In the same year she was recognized with the Canberra Times Artist of the Year award, in particular for her presentation Nellie Melba: Queen of Song which she devised for and performed in the Canberra International Music Festival that year. She has recorded nine CDs of music varying from Lieder to operetta, premières of Australian music and Christmas songs.
Phillipa Candy is a highly respected professional musician, as an accompanist, conductor, pianist, private teacher, college teacher, repetiteur and vocal coach. In the USA she performed regularly in Philadelphia. In Australia she has performed in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and regional areas. She has been awarded various prizes in Australia and the United States for performance and academic excellence. She studied vocal accompaniment with the late Geoffrey Parsons in London. She first toured for Musica Viva in 1988 as founding pianist with the group Austral Skies. Since 2011 she and Louise Page have been touring in the shows Nellie Melba: Queen of Song and The Magic of Operetta.
After returning to Australia in 1992, Phillipa formed an artistic partnership with soprano Louise Page to promote and foster art song. They have given many recitals for Art Song Canberra. Louise and Phillipa have recorded songs by Richard Strauss, Erich Korngold and Ann Carr-Boyd. They have also recorded Christmas and operetta CDs and contributed to a CD of Canberra artists made by Art Song Canberra. A CD of music by Horace Keats with Louise and members of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra will be launched in November in Canberra by Wirripang. They performed in the 2014 Canberra International Music Festival, giving Australian premières of works by first-rate World War I composers such as Antoine, Eisler and Jürgens.
Phillipa has performed for ABC “Sunday Live” with Louise Page, teaming up with flautist Teresa Rabe, and in 2014 with violinist Barbara Jane Gilby. She partnered mezzo-soprano Sally-Anne Russell in 2008 and 2011 for recitals for Art Song Canberra.