Voice of the Future winner to star in week-long festival
THE winner of this year’s Pendine International Voice of the Future Competition will give a recital at the Conwy Classical Music Festival as a result of winning at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod.
Mezzo soprano Erin Gwyn Rossington will perform at 3pm on July 24, with Annette Bryn Parri at the piano.
And she will take the stage again later in the day, as one of a quartet of fine young singers with Meinir Wyn Roberts, Huw Ynyr and John Ieuan Jones, in a concert entitled ‘A Night at the Opera.’
Festival director Chris Roberts said: “I’m absolutely delighted that Erin has won this prestigious competition, especially as she was a pupil of mine at Ysgol Dyffryn Conwy!
“Little did I think, when the International Eisteddfod got in touch with me to ask if we would host a recital by the winner of the competition, that it would be won by someone who I know well and who was already booked to take part in the festival!
“Erin is a truly worthy winner and has definitely got the potential to go far in the world of opera. We are looking forward very much to her performances here.”
The festival, which is one of the largest in Wales not to charge for admission, runs from July 20 to 27 and is expanding again this year with extra concerts.
Two orchestras will perform during the week.
The Festival orchestra, which has been a feature of the event since its inception 15 years ago, will perform on July 22. All members of the orchestra are professionals and play with the leading orchestras of the North West.
On the programme will be Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Greensleeves, Butterworth’s idyll ‘On the Banks of Green Willow’, and Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony.
In contrast, the concerto offering will be Shostakovich’s Concerto in C minor for Piano, Trumpet and String Orchestra. Soloists in this work will be pianist Ben Powell and Tracey Redfern (trumpet).
Following the success of their concert last year, Conwy’s own Town Orchestra again perform at the festival.
The orchestra was founded nine years ago, and has grown to be a versatile ensemble of more than 40 players drawn from a wide area of North Wales.
They will open the festival on the evening of Saturday, July 20 with a programme featuring Sibelius’ Spring Song, Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto in Bb, and Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony (From the New World). Chamber music will be well represented, with concerts by The Fitzsimmon Ensemble, The Manchester Ensemble and the Thorne Trio.
Amongst composers whose works will be performed are Mozart, Haydn, Dvorak, Brahms, Richard Strauss and Schubert.
Altogether more than 500 years of music will feature in the week-long event, ranging from Renaissance polyphony through to songs from the shows and a male voice choir.
Concerts take place in the historic St Mary’s church in the centre of Conwy.