Showcase Recital
Edinburgh New Town Church 1/6/25
SCO Chorus Young Singers’ Programme 2024-25
Gregory Batsleer director
Philip Sharp piano
A sizeable and appreciative audience of family, friends, fellow SCO Chorus members, invited guests, and those who’ve seen the concert advertised on the SCO Facebook page greet the eight singers who’ve been on the SCO Chorus’s Young Singers Programme for the last year. It’s a cheerful event with an end-of term air, but nonetheless the music-making both in the ensemble and in the solos is of the highest standard, a tribute to the singers’ talents and the quality of the Programme delivered by Gregory Batsleer.
Five years ago lockdown meant a lean year for musicians of all ages, with those still searching for their first job even more badly hit. I think this has led to more structured opportunities for singers at the start of their careers, whether through short residencies, like those arranged by the Samling organisation or the Edinburgh International Festival, or through year-long embedded experiences in choirs and opera companies. Last week I commented on the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union’s tenor scholars. The SCO Chorus’s Young Singers’ Programme has run for several years; this year’s group from all over the UK are sopranos Emily Kemp, Ciara O’Neill and Maria Campbell, alto Holly Gowen, tenors Ben Evans and Fraser Macdonald, and basses Luke Francis and Sasha del Mar. The Programme is aimed at those with a high level of singing/choral experience who wish to further their musicianship through singing with a world class ensemble. Many of the singers are members of other choirs, including church choirs, in Edinburgh and elsewhere.
The concert begins with ‘An Ode to the World’, by Kristina Arakelyan, an acapella work written less than two years ago with words from William Blake’s poem beginning “To see the world in a grain of sand” and from Sara Teasdale’s poem, ‘Joy’. Gregory Batsleer conducts, as the small ensemble makes light work of the complicated entries in this song and in the 500 year-old work by Monteverdi which follows. The choir is precise in the placing of the singers on stage (with some last-minute switches!), in their attention to the conductor and in their ability to listen to each other. Even more impressive are the later ensemble pieces, by Byrd, Monteverdi, and two modern composers, Joanna Forbes l’Estrange and Fraser David Macdonald, which the group sings without a conductor, using eye-contact as well as hearing – like magic but much more secure!
Five singers take part in one trio and four solos during the concert. Philip Sharp is a sympathetic pianist in the Mozart trio, ‘Ecco quell fiero istante’ sung by soprano, Emily Kemp, alto Holly Gowen, and Luke Francis bass. The two female voices blend and intertwine delightfully, contrasting with Luke Francis’s strong bass line. Holly Gowen’s solo from Rossini’s ‘Stabat Mater is an operatic aria which shows off her high notes. The other two female arias are from comedies, Emily Kemp sings Nannetta’s ’Sui fils d’un soffio etesio’ from Verdi’s Falstaff, a delicate aria about conjuring fairies, while soprano Ciara O’Neill creates imaginative mayhem with Adelaide’s aria ‘It’s My Wedding’ from Jonathan Dove’s ‘The Enchanted Pig’. She and pianist Philip Sharp make the most of the heroine’s bridezilla meltdown, denouncing her poor quality tiara, and the weakling dwarves who aren’t up to pulling her swan carriage up the aisle –she needs “midgets with muscle”. Her diction and timing are superb.
Tenor Ben Evans sings Vaughan Williams’ aria ‘Silent Noon’, whose text by Dante Gabriel Rossetti he has thought through carefully. It’s a characterful performance of a song which is as personal as it is pastoral. He may well have benefited from working with Roderick Williams (one of the Programme’s mentors this year - see the photo) but he makes the song very much his own. Towards the end of the concert there are two modern settings for the ensemble, Joanna Forbes l’Estrange’s ‘Drop, Drop Slow Tears’, takes the words of Orlando Gibbons’ song as her text for a work commissioned in memory of countertenor James Bowman. It mimics some Baroque phrasing, but provides modern harmonies – not easy to sing acapella and very beautiful. Fraser David Macdonald whose composition ‘Advice for a Butterfly’ I admired last week at the ERCU concert (now available on YouTube) has composed the song ‘Wonder’. Based on a post-war poem by Siegfried Sassoon, it is another lovely setting of early 20th century poetry, ideally suited to a four-part choir.
Gregory Batsleer returns to conduct the final number, a fine performance of Britten’s ‘Hymn to St Cecilia.’ He, the singers, Philip Sharp and Susan White, the Chorus Manager who has arranged today’s event, receive much well-deserved applause. Some of the singers are moving on elsewhere now, while others will continue in the Programme for another year. We look forward to seeing them in next season’s SCO Chorus.
