Emerging superstar tenor Mark Wilde is joined by one of Britain’s most loved and admired pianists and animateurs, David Owen Norris, for a concert celebrating the rich legacy of English song, from the Victorian stylings of Haynes, through the Edwardian mastery of Elgar, and on to a new cycle by Ian Venables, the man hailed by Musical Opinion Quarterly as “…Britain’s greatest living composer of art songs…”
Tickets now on sale!
Sunday 31 October @ 11:00
Huntingdon Hall
Song Recital: From Elgar to Venables
Mark Wilde – tenor
David Owen Norris – piano
Tickets – £12.00
Book online here
Book by phone via Worcester Theatres – 01905 611 427
Programme
Battisson Haynes – Set one of ‘Elizabethan’ lyrics. (Novello 1897)
Her hair the net of golden wire
Adieu, sweet Amaryllis
Fair is my love Now is my Chloris Heigh ho!
Though my carriage be but careless
Thine eyes so bright
Thou sent’st to me a heart was crowned
Come, O come, my life’s delight
Ian Venables – ‘The Last Invocation’ – a cycle of four settings to poems by Walt Whitman (WORLD PREMIERE)
- Shine, Shine, Shine!
- Out of May’s Shows Selected
- As At Thy Portals Also Death
- The Last Invocation
Sir Edward Elgar – A song selection to include:
In the dawn
Speak, music
Is she not passing fair?
A Poet’s Life
Through the Long Days
Born in Scotland, Mark Wilde was a chorister at Dundee Cathedral before studying at the University of East Anglia and the Royal College of Music.
He has established a particularly close relationship with English Touring Opera, for whom he has sung the title role in Albert Herring, Flute A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Johnny Inkslinger Paul Bunyan, Ugone Flavio, Tito La clemenza di Tito, Tamino The Magic Flute, Don Basilio The Marriage of Figaro, Farmer Bunce The Fantastic Mr Fox and The Fairy Queen.
Mark Wilde sang The Dream of Gerontius at the 27th Liepaja International Stars Festival, Latvia, and appears regularly in concert. His engagements have included performances with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Britten Sinfonia, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the City of London Sinfonia, the Finnish Baroque Orchestra, the Hanover Band, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, the Odense Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra and the Ural Philharmonic.
Mark Wilde’s recording as Monsieur in Sir Malcolm Arnold’s The Dancing Master with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by John Andrews was chosen by BBC Music Magazine as “Best Opera Recording of 2020,” by BBC Record Review as Record of the Week, as Editor’s Choice by Gramophone, as Critics’ Choice by Opera News, as Editor’s Choice by Gramophone and as a Sunday Times Album of the Week. He went on to sing this role for Red Squirrel Opera at the 2021 Buxton Festival.
Mark Wilde is a Professor Singing at London’s Royal Academy of Music and a Trustee of Waterperry Opera Festival.
David Owen Norris, the first winner of the Gilmore Artist Award, has played concertos all over North America and Australia, along with several appearances in the BBC Proms. A television programme entirely devoted to his work on the Elgar Piano Concerto, ending with a spectacular live performance of the whole work, has been shown frequently. He has recorded his own Piano Concerto in C with the BBC Concert Orchestra. His other concerto recordings include works by Lambert, Phillips, Horowitz & Arnell. Solo recitals, all over the world, have particularly featured the music of Brahms, Schubert, Poulenc, Bax & Elgar: he has recorded all Elgar’s piano music, including his own reconstruction of the magnificent Concert Allegro of 1901, along with Karg-Elert’s transcriptions of the First Symphony & the Symphonic Study: Falstaff, and his own transcriptions of the Pomp & Circumstance Marches.
He began his career by accompanying such artists as Dame Janet Baker, Sir Peter Pears & Jean-Pierre Rampal. His ambitious complete Sullivan song project will soon be augmented by a third disc on the Chandos label.
His other early piano recordings include Schubert’s Winterreise with David Wilson-Johnson, one of the earliest recordings (1984) of the piece on a contemporary piano (1826); Schubert’s first song-cycle, the Kosegarten liederspiel of 1815, of which he gave the modern premiere in 1997; Entertaining Miss Austen, a comprehensive selection from Jane Austen’s own music collection; the audio-guide to the Cobbe Collection, playing pianos formerly belonging to JC Bach, JB Cramer, Thalberg & Bizet; and, on Elgar’s piano, a double disc of songs and piano pieces, including the first conception of what eventually became the Cello Concerto.