December 2008 - newsletter 7





MRM Artists success in the press

Andrew Foster-Williams/Pelléas et Mélisande/Independent Opera, London
Here Independent Opera scored high...Andrew Foster-Williams acted and sang with impressive authority as the wretched Golaud
Rupert Christiansen, The Daily Telegraph, November 2008

Andrew Foster-Williams’s Golaud is the centre of this production.  Awkward, conventional, stiff with unexpressed emotion, hideously disappointed, shoe-horned into suspicion and grotesquely realistic domestic violence, he is as much, if not more, the victim.  It’s beautiful singing – impassioned, truthful - I found Foster-Williams the most moving Golaud I have heard
Anna Picard, The Independent, 23 November 2008

creepily suggested in Andrew Foster-Williams’s resonantly sung performance
Erica Jeal, The Guardian, 20 November 2008


Sally Matthews/Messiaen Poèmes pour Mi/LSO, Barbican Hall
Soprano Sally Matthews gave the words just the right ambiguous intensity - part mystical, part erotic…
Ivan Hewett, Telegraph, 10 October 2008

Sally Matthews’ elegant and gleaming light soprano shone as well as any, especially as she had felt her way sympathetically into the music’s heavily perfumed French atmosphere.
Richard Fairman, The Financial Times, 11 October 2008


Mark Padmore/Britten Sinfonia/Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Padmore’s great gift, apart from his prodigious technical ability, whether to float a line with perfect legato or to enter pianissimo at the top of his range, is to sing from the soul.
Fiona Maddocks, Evening Standard, 27 October 2008

Padmore proved the most responsive of interpreters and managed to be sensitive without becoming cutesy in the most picturesque poetry.
Richard Fairman, The Financial Times, 29 October 2008

Mark Padmore sang Birtwistle, Handel and Britten with equal assurance, unswerving musicality and fabulously clear enunciation
Andrew Clements,  The Guardian, 31 October 2008



MRM Artists forthcoming highlights

Katherine Broderick makes her debut at Kings Place, London in a recital with Eugene Asti on 8 February in a programme of Mendelssohn, Liszt and Wagner.

Karen Cargill returns to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra to sing Mendelssohn's Elijah with Yannick Nezet-Seguin alongside Mark Padmore on 29 January in Edinburgh and 30 January in Glasgow. The following week she has two appearances with the LPO: Beethoven Symphony No 9 on 4 February and Dvorak Requiem on 7 February, both with Neeme Jarvi.

Andrew Foster-Williams will appear with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Handel's Jephtha with Nicholas McGegan on 15 January. He will sing the title role in Handel's Saul with the Hamburg Radio Choir on 21 January, and make his debut with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Paul McCreesh, at the Concergebouw Hall on 24 and 26 January in Haydn's Die Jahreszeiten with Mark Padmore, February sees him add Nick Shadow The Rake's Progress to his repertoire in concert performances with the Basel Chamber Orchestra in Mantova, Innsbruck, Basel and Essen.   

Pär Lindskog returns to the Teatro Real in Madrid to sing Boris Katya Kabanova on  4 and 16 December before going to St Gallen to sing his first Hermann Pique Dame on 31 January, with further performances on February 6, 21, and 24.

Stephan Loges will make his debut in Milan singing Haydn's Die Schöpfung with Antonello Manacorda on 15, 16 and 17 February. Later in the month, he will return to the Northern Sinfonia for concerts in Gateshead, and on tour to Hong Kong, to perform Haydn's Harmoniemesse and Beethoven Symphony No 9 with Thomas Zehetmair.

Edgaras Montvidas is singing his first Werther in Vilnius on 17, 19, 21, 23 December before returning to sing again with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and Yakov Kreizberg for a five concert tour of Mozart Requiem.

Mark Padmore sings the title role in Handel's Samson at the Barbican with The Sixteen Choir and Orchestra and Harry Christophers on 12 February. On 18 February, he will take part in the world premiere of Martynov's Vita Nuova with the LPO and Vladimir Jurowski at the Royal Festival Hall, London with a further performance at Avery Fisher Hall,  New York on 28 February. Between those performances, he will sing Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin with Imogen Cooper in the festival for the reopening of Alice Tully Hall on 25 February.

Viktor Rud will sing Morales Carmen at the Staatsoper, Berlin on January 10, 15, 18, 23, 30.

Andrew Tortise will take the lead tenor role in the world premiere of Skin Deep by David Sawyer in a Richard Jones production for Opera North on January 16, 24, 30, Feb 4, 11, 17, 19 and 26.

Fflur Wyn sings Bach Christmas Oratorio in Naarden on 11 December with Combattimento Consort and Jan Willem de Vriend, before going to Valencia to sing Messiah with the English Concert and Harry Bicket on 15 December.

Thomas Walker  has a busy December singing Handel with Daniel Reuss - firstly the Messiah on tour with Capella Amsterdam (including a concert in the Concertgebouw on 13 December) before going to Estonia to appear with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir to perform Israel in Egypt on 19, 20 and 21 December, returning there for a televised New Year's Handel concert on 1st January. The following month  takes him to Brussels to sing Linfea in Cavalli's Calisto with Rene Jacobs at La Monnaie on 17, 19, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27 February.