Watford Philharmonic Preview

Our concert on 10th November, falls on the eve of Armistice Day, and the chosen music is both hauntingly beautiful and appropriate for such an occasion.

Mozart’s Requiem is recognised as a masterpiece, and is a work that the Watford Philharmonic, under the baton on Terry Edwards, look forward to performing for the first time for some years.

We also include the Society’s first performance of Duruflé’s Messe des Morts – also known as a Requiem.  First performed in 1947, it style is heavily influenced by Gregorian plainchant, and has been growing in popularity in recent years.

Our third work is the Serenade for Wind by Richard Strauss, which we last performed at an Orchestral Concert in 2007.

This season we are performing in three different venues while our regular concert hall, the Watford Colosseum, is closed for a major refurbishment.  This concert will be in Christ Church, St. Albans Road, Watford.  We have been using this church regularly for our Haydn in Herts orchestral workshops, and look forward to bringing the choir and orchestra for this important concert.

Please click on the link for directions on finding Christ Church, along with car parking details.

Nicola Stonehouse – Soprano -

studied at the Royal College of Music at the Benjamin Britten International Opera School. She now studies with Marie McLaughlin.

Roles at Opera Holland Park include Diana in the 2009 production of Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld; Annina in Verdi’s La Traviata; Wowkle in Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West and Lay Sister in Puccini’s Suor Angelica.

Roles elsewhere include Angelina in Gilbert & Sullivan’s Trial by Jury with Buxton G&S Opera Company; cover Megan in The Sacrifice (MacMillan) and Sian/Susan Another Life (Karen Wimhurst) both for WNO; Amour in Platee (Rameau) for English Bach Festival, Athens; Mrs Gobineau in The Medium (Menotti) at Wexford International Festival; Pamina for Dartington International Summer School’s production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute (supported by a Joan Haward Bursary) and the title role in Sāvitri (Holst) for the Montepulciano Festival.

Roles performed at college include Female Chorus in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia, Miss Jessel in Britten’s Turn of the Screw and Dorabella in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte.

Nicola is an experienced concert soloist having sung in all the UK’s major concert halls and on the high seas aboard P&O cruise liners.
 
Last year Nicola was part of the ROH education project “Voices of the Future” called On the Rim of the World by Orlando Gough, which was performed on the main stage at Covent Garden. Recent work includes the role of Frasquita in Opera Novella’s Carmen. In October Nicola was the soprano soloist with the St Albans Choral Society in Vivaldi’s Gloria and McDowell’s Magnificat, and in December she will perform in G&S Gala Concerts in Ireland.

Alexandra Tiffin – Mezzo-soprano

trained at the Royal Northern College of Music then at the Royal Academy of Music, where she received a Distinction for her Postgraduate Diploma in Performance.

Operatic roles performed while at the Royal Academy of Music include Gertrude in Thomas’ Hamlet, Bradamante in Handel’s Alcina, Olga in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare.

Since college, professional operatic roles have included Dorabella in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, Rosina in Rossini’s Il Barbiere Di Siviglia; Third Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflote; Solo Wife in Offenbach’s Bluebeard and Second Witch in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (Grange Park Opera) and the title role in Rossini’s Cenerentola (TellTale Opera).

Alexandra also enjoys a flourishing career as an oratorio and concert performer.  Previous professional concert performances include alto solos in Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Magnificat, Mozart’s and Duruflé’s Requiems and Dvořák’s Stabat Mater.

In 2009, Alexandra sang in the chorus of English National Opera’s productions of Britten’s Peter Grimes and Puccini’s Turandot as well as covering the role of Orsini in Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia with Buxton Festival Opera. 

Recent engagements include covering and performing the role of Mercédès in Opera Holland Park’s 2010 production of Bizet’s Carmen and the role of Sally in Buxton Festival Opera’s performance of The Hand of Bridge by Barber.  She also sang chorus with Buxton Festival Opera in their productions of Mozart’s Idomeneo, Verdi’s Luisa Miller and Cornelius’ The Barber of Baghdad.

Richard Edgar-Wilson - Tenor

is noted particularly as a Bach Evangelist and as an interpreter of the music of Benjamin Britten. He has sung the Passions around Europe, and performed Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings in Norway and Greece, War Requiem in England and Italy, Spring Symphony in Budapest, and Death in Venice for ENO and La Monnaie, Brussels.

As a concert artist, Richard Edgar-Wilson has collaborated with many of the world’s best conductors including Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Neville Marriner, Jeffrey Tate, Sir Roger Norrington, Trevor Pinnock and Philippe Herreweghe, and with orchestras such as Academy of St Martin in the Fields, LPO, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, CBSO and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. In recital he has performed with Graham Johnson and the Songmakers' Almanac, and with Eugene Asti, Roger Vignoles and Malcolm Martineau. Opera appearances include Acisin Canada and London, Taminoin New Zealand, Don Ottavio in Lisbon, Idomeneo at ENO, Quint in Turn of the Screw at Garsington and Stephen McNeff's The Gentle Giant for the Royal Opera House.

Recordings include San Giovanni Battista (GRAMOPHONE Award), Dioclesian with The English Concert, Messiah, Artaxerxes, Mozart’s Requiem,Boyce’s Odes, Coates’s Songs with Sir Thomas Allen, Die Schöne Müllerin, On Wenlock Edge, and two volumes of Swiss Romantic Lieder. Film and television work includes Beauty in the world premiere of Gerald Barry’s The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit for Channel Four and Radames in the Norwegian feature film Suffløsen (nominated for a "Best Foreign Film" Oscar).

Future engagements include Bernard Herrmann’s Moby Dick in Copenhagen (including a recording for Chandos) and Death in Venice at La Scala, Milan.

Dawid Kimberg - Baritone

was born in Johannesburg and attended the Drakensberg Boys' Choir School. He trained at the Royal College of Music with Ryland Davies, the National Opera Studio and the Aix-en-Provence Festival Academy.

Dawid last performed with the Watford Philharmonic in 2009 at a charity performance of Handle's Messiah.

Opera roles include Count in Le nozze di Figaro and Ottone in L'incoronazione di Poppea for RCM, Duke in Roméo et Juliette for British Youth Opera, Bruno in Parthenogenesis by James MacMillan at Canterbury Cathedral, Masetto in Don Giovanni at the Purcell Room, Morales in Carmen for Glyndebourne on Tour.

Concert performances include Carmina Burana for the RPO, Haydn’s Creonte in Haydn’s Orfeo ed Euridice in Moscow, Bach’s St John Passion and Easter Oratorio in Norway, Handel’s Messiah with David Willcocks, Mozart’s Mass in B Minor at Wells Cathedral and Leuthold  in Guillaume Tell with Accademia Santa Cecilia.

Recitals include Die schöne Müllerin and works by Schumann, Wolf, Brahms, Beethoven, Mahler, Finzi, Britten, Fauré and Duparc. He represented South Africa in the 2009 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.

He joined the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme in September 2009 and made his Royal Opera debut as Flemish Deputy in Don Carlo, followed by Steersman in Tristan und Isolde, Potapytch in The Gambler, Morales in Carmen and Second Nazarene in Salome. He also covered Astley and Unlucky Gambler in The Gambler, Forester in The Cunning Little Vixen and Marquis d'Obigny in La traviata. This season, he has sung Marullo in Rigoletto, to be followed by Second Prisoner in Fidelio and Master of Ceremonies in Cendrillon. He has also covered Malatesta in Don Pasquale and will cover Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Ned Keene in Peter Grimes.