All Saints Fulham Presents Final Music by the Bridge of 2019

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Concert on 22 November offers a programme of English String Masterpieces

The autumn season of Music by the Bridge, the popular series of free monthly Friday evening concerts at All Saints Fulham, concludes on Friday 22 November with English String Masterpieces presented by the Concordium String Ensemble.

The performers are Elinor Rolfe Johnson (soprano) and Lucy Goddard (conductor) and the music featured in the concert will include Finzi’s Cantata Dies Natalis plus works by Holst and Walton.

Elinor, pictured above, graduated from Cambridge University with a Masters degree in Music and studies with Susan Roberts. She completed her two years on the Opera school at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Summer of 2013. She has performed at venues including the Wigmore Hall, Theatre Royal Glasgow, L'Archeveche and Grand Theatre Aix-en-Provence, St Johns Smith Square, Leeds Town Hall, Snape Maltings and St. George’s Hanover Square.

A finalist at the 2010 London Handel Festival Competition, Elinor more recently performed the role of Ismene in Telemann's Orpheus for the Classical Opera Company. Summer 2014, Elinor covered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival for the Bach, Trauernacht project, under Raphael Pichon and worked alongside the Freiburger Barockorchester, with Pablo Heras-Casado in the festivals production of Die Zauberflote. She has recently debuted as Rosalinde for Opera Danube's Die Fledermaus at St John's, Smith Square and Countess for Regents Opera's Le Nozze di Figaro, revisiting the role last Summer for Opera Brava. Elinor has been delighted on occasion to work with the Israel Camerata and she recently performed the St John Passion with the Britten Sinfonia, directed by Mark Padmore. This year she performed her first Verdi Requiem for the Reading Festival Chorus and Symphony Orchestra.

2019 engagements include tours with the Monteverdi Choir (Berlioz Benvenuto Cellini), Elijah for Hadleigh Choral Society and Mahler, Rückert Lieder with Colchester Symphony Orchestra.

Lucy, above, divides her time between singing and conducting. As a conductor, she is Music Director of the Orlando Chamber Choir. Recent/forthcoming concerts with Orlando include a performance at the Pimlott Foundation in Colchester, a concert with Chelys Consort of Viols and a programme in the Marvão International Music Festival in Portugal. Other recent conducting engagements include conducting the professional choir of St Margaret’s Westminster, chorus mastering for the SWAP’ra gala at Opera Holland Park, conducting Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll with the Blaze Ensemble, and conducting Duruflé Requiem for St Endellion Festival’s Come and Sing.

As a mezzo soprano Lucy performs early music with groups such as the Academy of Ancient Music, Dunedin Consort and Solomon’s Knot, new music with EXAUDI, and 20th and 21st century song with duo partner Siwan Rhys. On the operatic stage she has performed both well-known and newly-written operas, among which the roles of Hänsel, Meg Page (Falstaff), Annio (Tito), Dorabella (Così fan tutte), and Zerlina (Don Giovanni). Recent contemporary operas include Dusapin Passion with Music Theatre Wales, and in Thomas Larcher The Hunting Gun at the Aldeburgh Festival.

With Siwan Rhys she completed a seven-concert tour of An American Songbook: a recital of avant-garde song and commissions by Christopher Mayo and Laura Bowler, having prepared and recorded the programme during a nine-day Snape Maltings residency. Upcoming engagements include Berio Sinfonia in Helsinki with Susanna Mälkki, a Handel and Purcell programme with Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, and a new commission by Ailie Robertson in the Sound Festival, Aberdeen.

 

Each Music by the Bridge concert starts at 7.15pm, with doors open from 6.45pm, and lasts for about 45 minutes, so it is a lovely way to start your weekend.

Everyone is welcome and entry is free, with wine and soft drinks available and a retiring collection held to support music at All Saints.

Find out more at All Saints Fulham.

November 12, 2019