Clare Tunney, soprano, Matthew Ryan, piano

12.30 lunchtime, Thursday 6th October 2016

Clare Tunney
soprano
Matthew Ryan
piano

courtesy of the Royal Academy of Music
Venue: Leatherhead Methodist Church

Sponsor:

2016 Season Sponsor:
Patricia Morgan Optician

Supported by:
Leatherhead Concert &
Arts Society

Programme

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
from Act 1 of the opera Il Re Pastore
(The Shepherd King) K208 (1775)
    Di tante sue procelle Your many struggles (this heart will never forget)

Claude-Achille Debussy (1862-1918)
Romance: musique pour éventail,
Silence ineffable de l'heure L43 (1883) Text: Paul Bourget

Richard Georg Strauss (1864-1949)
Morgen! Tomorrow! Op 27 No 4 (1894)
    Text: John Henry Mackay

Ernest Chausson (1855-1899)
from Sept Mélodies Op 2
Le Colibri The Hummingbird (1882) Text: Leconte de Lisle

Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947)
from Vingt Mélodies, 2e Receuil
    14 À Chloris (1913) Text: Théopile de Viau

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
from Act 1 of the opera Cosi fan Tutte K588 (1790)
    Come Scoglio Like a rock

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
from Act 1 of the opera La Bohème (1896)
Si, Mi Chiamano Mimi Yes, they call me Mimi

Frank Bridge (1879-1941)
O that it were so! H105 (1912) Text: Walter Savage Landor

Cole Porter (1891-1964)
from the Broadway musical Fifty Million Frenchmen (1929)
The Tale of the Oyster

Richard Georg Strauss
Zueignung Devotion (1885) Text: Hermann von Gilm

Free Concert, with a retiring collection to cover costs. Tea and coffee will be available after the concert.

Clare Tunney, soprano

North-East born Soprano, Clare Tunney is a Royal Academy of Music Scholarship student where she studies with Kathleen Livingstone, Audrey Hyland and Ian Partridge and is a member of the Academy’s prestigious group, ‘Song Circle’. She began her training as a Classical singer in 2009 with teacher Miranda Wright in Durham. She has been a Soprano soloist for many Oratorio works such as Haydn Creation (Durham Cathedral), Faure Requiem, Duruflé Requiem, Rutter Requiem, Schubert Mass in G, Britten Ceremony of Carols and Rejoice in the Lamb, Mozart Missa Brevis in D major and Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, Vivaldi Gloria and Goodhalls Eternal Light.

Her operatic roles to date include 'Lady Billows' in Britten’s Albert Herring (Samling Academy Foundation), 'Grizette' and Cover 'Valencienne' in Lehár’s The Merry Widow (Ryedale Festival Opera), 'Cherubino' in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, 'Dido' in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, 'Mrs Sem' in Britten’s Noyes Fludde and 'Fitzwalter' in Harrison's The Great Charter (commissioned by Durham Cathedral for the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta). She was also a chorus member in Royal Academy Opera's production of Handel's Ariodante.

Clare has performed in masterclasses with many esteemed artists and participated in the first 'Samling Academy ' in 2012 and again in 2013 where she worked with leaders such as Paul Farrington, Patricia MacMahon and Caroline Dowdle. In her latest masterclass, with Ann Murray DBE, she was awarded the 'Inaugural Award of the Guildford Spring Music Festival Bursary' for the most promising singer. At the Royal Academy of Music, Clare was awarded the Arthur Burcher Memorial Prize, The John McAslan Prize and represented the Academy in the 'Kathleen Ferrier Bursary Competition'. Clare would like to thank The Royal Academy of Music, The Royal Society of Musicians and The Josephine Baker Trust for their support.

Matthew Ryan, piano

Matthew Ryan is currently in his second year of Postgraduate Studies in Piano Accompaniment at the Royal Academy of Music, where he is tutored by James Baillieu and Gareth Hancock. He previously read music at Newcastle University, and studied solo piano at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. During his time in Helsinki, Matthew began to work closely with singers, frequently accompanying vocal faculty concerts, and was invited to take part in Samling Academy.

In his final year at Newcastle University, Matthew was appointed artistic director of the annual Summer Music Festival, and curated the week of concerts. Matthew is currently working with many singers at the academy, and he has a particular interest in late 19th century German song.

Matthew is grateful for the generous support of the Wayne Sleep Foundation.

The Duo

Clare and Matthew met at an RAM outreach event in Newcastle in the Autumn of 2012 when he was in the first year of a music degree at the University. They clicked pretty quickly and have enjoyed working together ever since.

Concert at Home

If you cannot be with us at the lunchtime concert
you can enjoy a similar Concert at Home by clicking on the videos below:

Clare Tunney opens her concert with the aria Di tante sue procelle, from Mozart's opera Il re pastore
(The Shepherd King). Your many struggles, this heart will never forget.
In this excerpt from a staged production at La Coruña Mozart Festival we see and hear mezzo-soprano Marisa Martins.

The Ineffable Silence of the Hour - Silence ineffable de l'heure - is the subtitle of Debussy's Romance: musique pour éventail. Let's lsten to soprano María Bazal:

Next, Jessye Norman sings Morgen by Richard Strauss, live at the spectacular inaugural concert of the
1991 Salisbury Festival held at Salisbury Cathedral's West Green:

From a 1980 recording comes Elly Ameling, with pianist Dalton Baldwin, and Chausson's setting of Leconte de Lisle's
Le Colibri - The Hummingbird:

Hear are two ways to listen to Susan Graham singing Reynaldo Hahn's À Chloris.
On the left you can follow the vocal and piano score, and on the right she speaks and then sings at Grace Cathedral,
San Francisco, in a benefit for the rebuilding of Trinity Music School, Port-au-Prince,
which was destroyed by the 2010 Haiti quake:

If you like to hear your opera arias in situ, as it were, from a Glyndebourne recording of Cosi fan tutte, comes the aria
Come Scoglie - Like a rock:

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sings Yes, my name is Mimi - Si, Mi Chiamano Mimi, from Puccini's La Bohème, in a Victoria State Opera production from Melbourne:

Let's change the mood, as we turn to Frank Bridge and his song O, that it were so.
From a recital in St John's Smith Square, we hear soprano Camilla Roberts accompanied by Sergey Rybin:

On the left our recording of Cole Porter's The Tale of the Oyster comes from St Anne's Church, Dublin, and
mezzo-soprano Ann Hogan:

And on the right we have a cabaret performance from Stage 72, on New York's West 72nd Street.
Sasha Urban presents:

Let's finish with another visit to the Proms. This time we hear the soprano Renée Fleming and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (forces that would fill our little Church, leaving no space for audience !), in Richard Strauss's short song Zueignung - Devotion: