50th Anniversary Concert

Come and support our 50th Anniversary Celebration Concert and Fundraising Appeal, featuring some of the biggest names in classical music:

The British a cappella ensemble Apollo5 has been praised for its engaging and entertaining performances. With a repertoire ranging from retro jazz, pop and classical arrangements to Christmas a cappella, they are adept performers on the concert platform, at festivals, private parties and corporate events. The group’s performances in London have included St Martin-in-the-Fields, the Royal Albert Hall, the Troxy, Café de Paris, the Houses of Parliament, Pizza Express Jazz Club Soho, The Crazy Coqs and Kings Place. Recent UK festivals include The City of London Festival, The London A Cappella Festival, the Petworth Festival and the Aldeburgh High Tide Festival. The five outstanding vocalists also perform internationally, most recently touring the USA before singing at the Festival La Folle Journée, France. Apollo5 has broadcast live on Resonance FM, BBC Radio 2 and Classic FM. The group has recently worked in partnership with The Sixteen, The National Gallery and St Martin-in-the-Fields, presenting an exciting new festival, ‘Sounds Sublime’.

After graduating from the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme in July 2015, Australian soprano Kiandra Howarth was awarded the ‘Culturarte Prize’ in the 23rd Edition of Plácido Domingo’s Operalia – The World Opera Competition which was held at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Now based in the UK, recent and future performances include Cosi fan tutte for West Green Opera, Northern Ireland Opera and Nevill Holt Opera, a concert series for the Salzburg Festival Young Singers Project in China, her debut at Wigmore Hall for the Samling Artist Programme’s 20th Anniversary Concert,  and Don Giovanni at Theater Basel, Opéra de Luxembourg and Opéra de Nantes.

Winner of First and Public Prizes, as well as special prizes from Deutsche Grammophon and Royal Danish Opera, at the 2016 Stella Maris Competition, and of the 2014 Concours Suisse Ernst Haefliger Competition, Armenian soprano Anush Hovhannisyan was a finalist at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2017 competition and a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden between 2013 and 2015. Praised as "hypnotically striking", "glamorous, excitingly temperamental", her voice "rich and vibrant, smoky and spiritual" and "flame-toned", and following her appearance as a finalist in the 2018 International Opera Awards, she enjoyed her a “star is born moment” (The Sunday Times) on her acclaimed debut with Scottish Opera.

A graduate of the Seoul National University, he made his professional debut as Rodolfo La bohème and subsequently joined the Royal Opera House in September 2015. An alumnus of the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme, Korean tenor David Junghoon Kim is the winner of the much-coveted Francisco Viñas, Voci Verdiane and Toulouse singing competitions.

Dame Felicity Lott is one of the UKs best-loved sopranos. In opera, her portrayals of the Strauss and Mozart roles in particular have led to critical and popular acclaim worldwide. Her concert engagements have taken her to the major orchestras, working with Rattle, Haitink, Mehta, Previn, Masur, Welser-Möst, Sawallisch and Sir Andrew Davis. Much of her concert and recital repertoire is recorded, as are many of her great operatic roles: from her wonderful Marschallin under Carlos Kleiber to her Belle Helene, with which she enchanted the Parisians when she sang the role for the first time at the Chatelet in Paris in 2000. 

Mezzo-soprano Angharad Lyddon is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, a former Jerwood Young Artist and a Samling Artist. Following her success at the 2018 Welsh Singer Showcase, Angharad represented Wales at the 2019 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition and was a Finalist in the Song Prize Competition. Her awards include semi-finalist at the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition and 2nd prize at the International Voice of the Future, Llangollen International Eisteddfod. 

Malcolm Martineau is one of the world’s greatest accompanists. He appears throughout Europe, North America, the Far East and Australasia with many of the world’s greatest singers and records widely for the major recording companies. Recording projects have included Schubert, Schumann and English song recitals with Bryn Terfel, Schubert and Strauss recitals with Simon Keenlyside, recital records with Angela Gheorghiu and Barbara Bonney, Magdalena Kozena and Della Jones, the complete Faure songs with Sarah Walker and Tom Krause, the complete Britten Folk Songs and the complete Beethoven Folk Songs. Other recordings include the complete Poulenc and Mendelssohn songs, Schubert with Florian Boesch, My True Love Hath My Heart with Dame Sarah Connolly, Heimlische Aufförderrung and Scene! with Christiane Karg, Portraits with Dorothea Röschmann and Reger with Sophie Bevan.

British bass James Platt was educated at Chetham’s School of Music and went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music and the Opera Course of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.  He was a member of the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden from 2014-2016.  Highlights in his 2018/19 season include Sarastro Die Zauberflöte and the roles of Count Rostov, Tichon, Berthier, Ramballe & Beningsen in a new production of Prokofiev’s War and Peace for the Welsh National Opera; Crespel Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Basilio Il barbiere di Siviglia for the Deutsche Oper, Berlin and his debut for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence as Oberlin in Wolfgang Rihm’s Jakob Lenz.

Sir John Tomlinson CBE is an English bass. He sings regularly with the Royal Opera and English National Opera, and has appeared with all the major British opera companies. He has sung at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany every year from 1988 to 2006, as Wotan, the Wanderer, King Marke, Titurel, Gurnemanz, Hagen and the Dutchman. In 2008, he created the title role in Harrison Birtwistle's opera The Minotaur at the Royal Opera House. He was awarded a CBE in 1997 and knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours of 2007. He was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award for Singer in 1991, 1998 and 2007 and in 2014 their Gold Medal.