Talent showcase
Concert provides stage to four conductors and an opera singer
FOUR aspiring conductors and an up-and-coming opera singer will be showcasing their burgeoning talent at a major orchestral concert in North Wales. The Classical Masterpieces concert at St Asaph Cathedral at 7.30pm on Friday, June 10, is being organised by the ground-breaking Wrexhambased NEW Sinfonia orchestra.
The performance is being put on in partnership with the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in Manchester as part of the orchestra’s commitment to developing the next generation of star musicians and conductors.
The professional orchestra, led by Robert Guy, will be joined on stage by Leon Frantzen, Ann Miller, Philip Trudgeon and Xinjie Yang, four of the Manchester College’s promising Master’s Student Conductors in a concert that features music by the classical heavyweights of Mozart, Schubert, Debussy and Mahler. .
The soloist will be mezzo soprano Morgana Warren-Jones who hails from Bangor, Gwynedd, and will sing
Mahler’s Ruckert Lieder.
She is currently studying for a Master of Music at the Royal Northern College of Music under the tutelage of Hilary Summers. She previously read Music at the University of Leeds and spent a year studying voice at the Académie Supérieure de Musique de Strasbourg.
Last year Morgana performed the title role in Menotti’s The Medium at the RNCM and was a finalist in the Morriston Orpheus Choir Supporters’ Association (MOCSA) Young
Welsh Singer of the Year competition.
She finishes her course this summer and already has a full diary for the next few months.
Morgana added: “I have worked with Welsh National Opera running their youth and community events before I started my master’s course at the Royal Northern and I hope to be an opera singer and concert singer.”
Mark Heron, Professor and Head of Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music, said the concert is an opportunity for the students, who are all Master’s students on the conducting course, to conduct NEW Sinfonia,
“It’s a great opportunity for the students to work with an orchestra made up of young professional musicians.”
Mark said the conducting course is a two year programme and is “very competitive”.
The concert at St Asaph Cathedral on June 10, starts at 7:30pm and tickets available online at /www. newsinfonia.org.uk/event-details/ classical-masterpieces or on the door or ring Robert Guy on 07725 050510.