For tickets and other details please see our events page
Handel - Messiah
19 December 2006
Spring Concert
Aberdeen Music Hall - 18 March 2008 7.30pm
Franz Joseph Haydn
Te Deum in C Major
Symphony No 99 in E flat
Insanae et Vanae Curae
Mass in B flat (Theresienmesse) ,
Denise Leigh - Soprano
Born in Audley, Staffordshire, Denise Leigh began her career as a brass player, before gaining a Sainsbury’s Gatesby Trust award to continue her studies. Awarded a place at the Royal Northern College of Music, she continues to work with Lillian Watson. She first came to wider prominence as a Winner of the English National Opera / Channel 4 TV programme Operatunity, which won the Prix Italia 2003, and led to an appearance as Gilda Rigoletto (shared with her Co-Winner Jane Gilchrist) at the London Coliseum. She has since returned to ENO for Orlando Gough’s For the Public Good and other stage work has included Russell Barr’s play The Super / Naughty XXXmas Story at Wilton’s Music Hall.
Denise Leigh has appeared with Clonter Opera as well as at the BBC Proms in the Park, Belfast Proms in the Park, Friday Night is Music Night and Songs of Praise. She undertook an extensive concert tour, A Night at the Opera, with Jane Gilchrist, Alan Oke and Wyn Pencarreg, and has also appeared on Counterpoint and presented In Touch for the BBC. Other engagements have taken her to the Royal Albert Hall for Classic FM live with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, the Chester Summer Music Festival and the Three Choirs Festival, Hereford.
She sings regularly in concert, her recent engagements including the Brahms Requiem in St Albans Abbey and Rochester Cathedral, Messiah at the London Handel Festival and with the Orchestra of St John’s, Samson with the Brook Street Band, the Mostly Mozart Tour for Calibre Productions and a Gala Concert with the Ten Tors Orchestra.
Lise Christensen - Mezzo Soprano
Born in Denmark, Lise studied at the University and the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen and at the GSMD with Susan McCulloch.
She has completed studies at The National Opera Studio. Operatic roles include Aristeo Orfeo, St John’s Smith Square, Dorabella London Opera Players, Larina Eugene Onegin, Clonter Opera, Alisa Lucia di Lammermoor, New Sussex Opera, Lucilla La Scala di Seta, Marta Iolantha, Lady with a Hatbox Postcard from Morocco, Jenny Diver Beggar’s Opera and Mary Going into Shadows, GSMD.
Equally at home on the concert stage, Lise has performed throughout the UK. Works include Bach St John Passion, Handel Messiah and Dixit Dominus, Vivaldi Gloria, Mozart Requiem and Rossini Petite Messe Solenelle as a winner of the Philharmonia Chorus Prize. She is also a Samling Foundation Scholar. Recent concert performances include Elgar’s Music Makers and Rossini’s Messa di Gloria.
Lise has taken part in masterclasses with Sarah Walker, Linbury Studio, Malcolm Martineau, Felicity Palmer and Graham Johnson.
She has recently performed the role of Mum in Marianne Dreams by Andrew Lowe-Watson at Lilian Baylis Theatre and also covered the role of Dejanira Hercules at Buxton Festival.
Lise has recently worked with BBC Wales on a recording of the Little Prince and with Phylida Lloyd at The Young Vic.
Future engagements include Meg Falstaff, for Stanley Hall Opera, Carmen for Mid Wales Opera and Beethoven Ninth Symphony for Manchester Camerata.
MICHAEL BRACEGIRDLE - TENOR
Winner of the Emmy Destinn Award for Young Singers 2006 and a graduate of Durham University, Michael Bracegirdle first trained as a chartered accountant and then worked as a Finance Director in industry. In September 2003, he gave up his career to further his studies at the Royal Northern College of Music.
At the RNCM, he sang Sandy / First Officer The Lighthouse and Tom Rakewell The Rake’s Progress, recently returning to sing Ruggero La rondine. Professional engagements have included Don José Carmen for Mid Wales Opera and Stowe Opera, Steva Jenufa and Cavaradossi Tosca for English Touring Opera, Rodolfo La bohème for Mananan Festival Opera, Jenik The Bartered Bride for Mid Wales Opera, Tom Rakewell The Rake’s Progress for Cambridge University Opera, Lensky Eugene Onegin for English Touring Opera and Longborough Festival Opera and Alfredo La traviata for Clonter Opera. In concert, Michael Bracegirdle has sung with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Other engagements have included the Missa Solemnis at The Anvil, Basingstoke, Das Lied von der Erde at St John’s, Smith Square, and Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle in Bury St Edmunds Cathedral, and his broadcasts include Friday Night is Music Night and In Tune for the BBC.
His current engagements include First Armed Man The Magic Flute for English National Opera, First Armed Man The Magic Flute and Ruiz Il trovatore for Opera Holland Park, Rodolfo La bohème for Mid Wales Opera, Beethoven Missa Solemnis at the Barbican Hall, Puccini Messa di Gloria and Rossini Stabat Mater for the Huddersfield Choral Society and a New Year’s Gala with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. As a Prize Winner at the Opera Competition and Festival with Mezzo Television, Hungary, he will be making his New York opera début as Danforth in Robert Ward’s The Crucible with Dicapo Opera Theatre in autumn 2008.
PAUL REEVES - BASS
Paul Reeves studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Rudolf Piernay where roles included Pasquale The Aspern Papers, Superintendent Budd Albert Herring, Don Basilio Il barbiere di Siviglia, Chub Cherevichky, Der Lautsprecher Der Kaiser von Atlantis and The Tsar's Equerry The Tsar Has his Photograph Taken. There then followed a year at the National Opera Studio sponsored by The Richard Lewis Award (Glyndebourne), The Sybil Tutton Trust and The John Wates Trust.
Other engagements have included Matthew in the World Première of The Last Supper (Birtwistle) at the Staatsoper Berlin, a production repeated at Glyndebourne and on the South Bank, Zuniga Carmen with Tenerife Opera, Dean Babette’s Feast in the Linbury Theatre, Covent Garden, Die Fiesque Maria di Rohan and Mr Gobineau The Medium with Wexford Festival Opera, Somnus Semele, Colline La bohème and Don Basilio The Barber of Seville with English National Opera, Badger / Parson The Cunning Little Vixen with ETO, Opera Theatre Company, Dublin, and WNO. Publio La Clemenza di Tito and Colline La Bohème for Glyndebourne, Sarastro The Magic Flute and Colline La Bohème for British Youth Opera, Betto Gianni Schicch, Colline La bohème and Sparafucile Rigoletto with Diva Opera, Clerk May Night with Garsington Opera, The Sergeant The Pirates of Penzance for The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the West End, Gremin Eugene Onegin with Scottish Opera, The King Aida for Raymond Gubbay at The Royal Albert Hall, Wurm Luisa Miller and Sparafucile Rigoletto for Opera Holland Park and Ceprano Rigoletto with English National Opera.
His concert repertoire includes J. S. Bach St John Passion and St Matthew Passion, Gounod St Cecilia Mass, Haydn The Creation and Nelson Mass, Mozart Mass in C Minor and Requiem, Puccini Messa di Gloria, Rossini Stabat Mater, Tippett A Child Of Our Time and the Verdi Requiem.
Recent and current engagements include Hobson Peter Grimes and Les Noces with Opera North, PR Guy The Birds (Hughes) and Roger Corboz The Shops (Rushton) with The Opera Group, Commendatore Don Giovanni with the Oxford Philomusica, the World Première of The Water Diviner’s Tale (Rachel Portman) for the BBC Proms and Radio 3, Abimelech Samson et Dalila and Sparafucile Rigoletto for Anna Livia International Opera Festival, Dublin, and the St John Passion for the Brighton Festival Chorus.
DECEMBER 2008
Messiah
George Frederick Handel (1685 - 1759)
Aberdeen Music Hall - December 2008 7.15pm
" And without controversy, great is the Mystery of Godliness; God as manifested in the Flesh, justify'd by the Spirit, seen of Angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the World, received up in Glory.
"In whom are hid all the Treasures of wisdom and knowledge."
Thus read the cover of the word book for the first London performance of "Messiah" at the Covent Garden Theatre (now the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden) on 23 March 1743.
It was two years earlier that Handel responded to the Lord Lieutenant's invitation to visit Dublin with a "sacred oratorio" for the benefit of some of the city's charities. The text was compiled from Biblical sources by Charles Jennens and was composed in London in the astonishingly short period between 22nd August and 14th September 1741. Even allowing for Handel's frequent recourse to previously composed material (choruses such as "And he shall purify" and "For unto us" derive from music written for secular Italian cantatas) - "Messiah" remains an extraordinary sustained burst of inspiration.
Although an oratorio "Messiah" (and to some extent the choral epic "Israel and Egypt") stands apart from Handel's other works of this type. It has no plot in the operatic sense of the word and they are the only pieces whose text is taken exclusively from the Bible. Nevertheless Handel was essentially a musical dramatist and "Messiah" is, as Window Dean has written, a "unique fusion" of the traditions of Italian opera, English anthem and German passion".
As such the work occupies a unique position in British musical life. This has not always been to its advantage; the drama, the wit and the humanity of the music - even in his own lifetime - were obscured by what was seen as its immense dignity and sublimity. Mammoth performances by hundreds of voices and enormous orchestras have occasionally got in the way of the composer's intentions. The extraordinary directness of vision and blazing sincerity of "Messiah" together with its unquenchable vigour and vitality, will, it is to be hoped always shine through.
