Bliss International Song Series - This Other Eden - English Song and Poetry

3.30 PM, Saturday 6th November

 

Sir Thomas Allen - speaker

Kitty Whately - mezzo-soprano 

Joseph Middleton - piano

British mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately released This Other Eden: A Landscape of English Poetry and Song in 2015, supported by the BBC New Generation Artist Scheme. Featuring her regular duo-partner, pianist Joseph Middleton, the recording also brought together English song with poetry read by Kitty’s parents, actors Kevin Whately (best known as Lewis in Morse) and Madelaine Newton. This afternoon they are joined by one of the greatest artists Britain has produced - Sir Thomas Allen.



Split into five landscape-inspired themes, the collection includes songs by composers from Warlock to Horowitz and features words by Shakespeare, Housman and Hardy among many others. For their Pembroke College recital Whately, Allen and Middleton also shine a light on female composers, repertoire that is close to their hearts.

Buy your ticket: £20 (standard), £5 (students).

Kitty Whately trained at Chetham’s School of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Royal College of Music International Opera School. She won both the Kathleen Ferrier Award and the 59th Royal Overseas League Award in the same year, and was part of the prestigious Verbier Festival Academy where she appeared as Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro and in Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy. Kitty was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2013-15, during which time she recorded her debut solo album This Other Eden, made recordings with the BBC orchestras, commissioned a new song cycle from Jonathan Dove, and made several appearances at the Proms.

Recent and future engagements include Hansel Hansel and Gretel and Donna Elvira Don Giovanni (Scottish Opera), Hermia A Midsummer Night's Dream (Opéra de Rouen), Kate Owen Wingrave (Grange Park Opera), Annina Der Rosenkavalier (Garsington Opera), Dog / Forester's Wife / Woodpecker / Owl The Cunning Little Vixen with the CBSO in Birmingham, Paris, Hamburg and Dortmund and her usual assortment of recitals. Recent opera highlights include Isabella Wuthering Heights and Kate Owen Wingrave(Opera National de Lorraine, Nancy), Paquette Candide (Bergen National Opera, following a concert performance of the role at The Grange Festival), Mother/Other Mother in the world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Coraline (Barbican, produced by the Royal Opera House), Meg in the British premiere of Little Women and Dorabella Così fan tutte (Opera Holland Park), Dorabella and Nancy Albert Herring (The Grange Festival), Hermia (Aix-en-Provence Festival and in Beijing) and the world premiere of Vasco Mendonça’s The House Taken Over directed by Katie Mitchell (Antwerp, Strasbourg, Luxembourg, Bruges and Lisbon). Other operatic roles include Rosina Il barbiere di Siviglia and Stewardess in Jonathan Dove’s Flight (Opera Holland Park); Hermia (Bergen National Opera); Dorabella (English Touring Opera) and Ippolita / Pallade in Cavalli’s Elena in Montpellier and Versailles for the Aix-en-Provence Festival.

Kitty is in high demand as a recitalist and concert artist. She made her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, singing Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as a recital alongside Malcolm Martineau at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Recent concert performances include Mahler Das Lied von der Erde at the Mizmorim Festival in Basel, The Dream of Gerontius (Crouch End Festival Chorus at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and St John’s Smith Square), and recitals of at Wigmore Hall, Music at Oxford and the Salisbury International Festival. She has given performances with most of the UK’s major orchestras, including Duruflé’s Requiem and Mozart’s Requiem (in Oslo with the Dunedin Consort and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra), Bach’s B Minor Mass (Royal Northern Sinfonia and Scottish Chamber Orchestra), Beethoven’s Mass in C Major (Philharmonia Orchestra), Haydn’s Nelson Mass (Britten Sinfonia on tour in Spain and the Netherlands), Bach’s Magnificat (Britten Sinfonia and Choir of King’s College Cambridge), and Handel's Messiah (Royal Albert Hall). Kitty has given recitals at the Edinburgh International, Salisbury International, Oxford Lieder, Leeds Lieder and Buxton festivals, working regularly with renowned accompanists including James Baillieu, Julius Drake, Graham Johnson, Simon Lepper, Malcolm Martineau, Gary Matthewman, Joseph Middleton, Anna Tilbrook and Roger Vignoles.

Kitty made her BBC Proms debut in Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ Suite from Act II of Caroline Mathilde, and also appeared in a Chamber Music Prom singing the music of Stephen Sondheim. Her frequent performances with the BBC orchestras include De Falla’s The Three Cornered Hat (BBC National Orchestra of Wales) Beethoven's 9th Symphony (BBC Philharmonic), and Nancy in a concert performance of Britten’s Albert Herring (BBC Symphony), as well as recordings of Ravel’s Scheherezade (BBC Philharmonic), Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne (BBC Scottish Symphony), and songs by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Jerome Kern and Cole Porter (BBC Concert).

In 2017 Kitty released her second album, Nights not spent alone, to critical acclaim. Recorded in a co-production between Champs Hill Records and the BBC, and accompanied by distinguished pianist Simon Lepper, the disc presents complete works for mezzo-soprano by Jonathan Dove. It includes a song cycle of the same name dedicated to Kitty, which she premiered at the Cheltenham Music Festival in 2015.

Pianist Joseph Middleton specializes in the art of song accompaniment and chamber music and has been highly acclaimed in this field. Described in Opera Magazine as ‘the rightful heir to legendary accompanist Gerald Moore’, by BBC Music Magazine as ‘one of the brightest stars in the world of song and Lieder’, he has also been labeled ‘the cream of the new generation’ by The Times. He is Director of Leeds Lieder, Musician in Residence at Pembroke College, Cambridge and a Fellow of his alma mater, the Royal Academy of Music, where he is also a Professor. He was the first accompanist to win the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award. He is also College Musician at Pembroke College.

Joseph is a frequent guest at major music centres including London’s Wigmore Hall (where he has been a featured artist), Royal Opera House and Royal Festival Hall, New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Park Avenue Armory, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Berlin BoulezSaal, Kölner Philharmonie, Konzerthaus and Musikverein Vienna, Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Muziekgebiouw, Zürich Tonhalle, Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Lille and Gothenburg Opera Houses, Baden-Baden, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Musée d’Orsay Paris, Oji Hall Tokyo and Festivals in Aix-en-Provence, Aldeburgh, Barcelona, Schloss Elmau, Edinburgh, Munich, Ravinia, San Francisco, Schubertiade Hohenems and Schwarzenberg, deSingel, Soeul, Stuttgart, Toronto and Vancouver. He made his BBC Proms debut in 2016 alongside Iestyn Davies and Carolyn Sampson and returned in 2018 alongside Dame Sarah Connolly where they premiered recently discovered songs by Benjamin Britten.

Joseph enjoys recitals with internationally established singers including Sir Thomas Allen, Louise Alder, Mary Bevan, Ian Bostridge, Allan Clayton, Dame Sarah Connolly, Marianne Crebassa, Iestyn Davies, Fatma Said, Samuel Hasselhorn, Christiane Karg, Katarina Karnéus, Angelika Kirchschlager, Dame Felicity Lott, Christopher Maltman, John Mark Ainsley, Ann Murray DBE, James Newby, Mark Padmore, Mauro Peter, Miah Persson, Sophie Rennert, Ashley Riches, Dorothea Röschmann, Kate Royal, Carolyn Sampson, Nicky Spence and Roderick Williams.

He has a special relationship with BBC Radio 3, frequently curating his own series and performing alongside the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists. His critically acclaimed and fast-growing discography has seen him awarded a Diapason D’or, Edison Award and Priz Caecilia as well as receiving numerous nominations for Gramophone, BBC Music Magazines and International Classical Music Awards. His interest in the furthering of the song repertoire has led Gramophone Magazine to describe him as ‘the absolute king of programming’.