Two of our most recent initiatives – ‘Samling Singing Schools’ and ‘Samling and Song’ – kickstart a busy autumn programme.
St Leonard’s School in Durham will become our next Singing School followed by King Edward VI Morpeth, Northumberland in January. Soloists, choirs and staff at each school will receive tailored coaching following our core principles of healthy, natural singing, attention to text and learning through doing. We are also looking forward to welcoming students from Egglescliffe who successfully auditioned for Samling Academy after our first Singing School workshops there.
In September, mezzo-soprano Shakira Tsindos and pianist Lana Bode will be the second duo to take up a Samling and Song residency at Marchmont Estate. This funded residency gives Samling Artist duos time and space to develop innovative art song projects. Shakira and Lana’s project, ‘Love Indeed’ is a multimedia exploration of modern relationships.
Samling Artist sopranos Charlotte Bowden and Jessica Cale will be joining Royal Northern Sinfonia in Sage One for Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream on 14 September. This concert opens the 2024/25 classical season at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music and will see both Charlotte and Jessica making their debuts at The Glasshouse.
Our core programmes continue later in the Autumn. In October, our 2024/25 cohort of Samling Academy Singers drawn from schools and universities in North East England will get together for six intensive days of masterclasses and workshops. They’ll be sharing their work in an afternoon concert at The Glasshouse on 20 October. Some of the singers on stage will be with us for the first time and others are returning – you may have seen some of them in our semi-staged summer concert ‘Lost and Found’.
Italian soprano Barbara Frittoli brings operatic star power to our Samling Artist Programme in November, joining pianist Caroline Dowdle and actor James Garnon who bring their ever-popular mix of expertise and playfulness. Our eight new Samling Artists will be spending an intensive week working with Barbara, Caroline and James and we hope you can join them all for an afternoon of discovery at our public Masterclass on Saturday 30 November at Marchmont House. Click here for our Spotlight profile on Barbara Frittoli.
Samling Artist Showcase
We make our regular visit to Wigmore Hall on Thursday 7 November for our Samling Artist Showcase.
Soprano Jessica Cale, mezzo-soprano Beth Moxon, tenor Dafydd Jones, bass Jamie Woollard and pianist JongSun Woo all became Samling Artists within the last two years. Pianist Jonathan Ware was a programme leader in 2023 and completes the line-up.
This year’s programme, on the theme ‘Musing in Solitude’ includes Benjamin Britten’s Les illuminations; Welsh songs by Dilys Elwyn Edwards and romances by Sergei Rachmaninov. We’re also delighted that for the first time, our showcase will include music written by a Samling Artist when Beth Moxon sings ‘Constellations’ by Yshani Perinpanayagam.
