A Somerset Schubertiade with Julius Drake and Friends

14-16 September

Julius Drake and Friends

Elizabeth Watts soprano
James Gilchrist baritone
Richard Wigmore lecturer

Lieder recitals of Schubert, Schumann, Strauss and Wolf, talks and walks, with meals interspersed

JULIUS DRAKE Piano

The pianist Julius Drake lives in London and specialises in the field of chamber music, working with many of the world’s leading artists, both in recital and on disc.
He appears at all the major music centres: in recent seasons concerts have taken him to the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Munich, Salzburg, Schubertiade, and Tanglewood Music Festivals; to Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Centre, New York; the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and Philarmonie, Cologne; the Châtelet and Musée de Louvre, Paris; the Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Vienna; and the Wigmore Hall and BBC Proms, London.
Director of the Perth International Chamber Music Festival in Australia from 2000 - 2003, Julius Drake was also musical director of Deborah Warner’s staging of Janáček’s Diary of One Who Vanished, touring to Munich, London, Dublin, Amsterdam and New York.  In 2009 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Machynlleth Festival in Wales.
Julius Drake is invited regularly to give master classes, recently in Amsterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg, Oxford, Paris, Vienna and at the Schubert Institut, Baden bei Wien. From 2010 he is appointed Professor at Graz University for Music and the Performing Arts in Austria.
Julius Drake’s passionate interest in song has led to invitations to devise song series for the Wigmore Hall, London, the BBC and the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. A series of song recitals – Julius Drake and Friends – in the historic Middle Temple Hall in London, has featured recitals with many outstanding vocal artists including Thomas Allen, Olaf Bär, Ian Bostridge, Angelika Kirchschlager, Sergei Leiferkus, Felicity Lott, Katarina Karneus, Simon Keenlyside, Christopher Maltman, Mark Padmore, Christoph Pregardien, Amanda Roocroft, and Willard White.
Julius Drake is frequently invited to perform at international chamber music festivals – recently Kuhmo in Finland, Delft in the Netherlands, Oxford in England and West Cork in Ireland - while his instrumental duo with Nicholas Daniel has been described in The Independent newspaper as “one of the most satisfying in British chamber music: vital, thoughtful and confirmed in musical integrity of the highest order.”

Recordings include releases for Bis, Chandos, Eloquentia, EMI, Etcetera, Hyperion, Naxos, Onyx and Virgin and include Sibelius Songs and Grieg Songs with Katarina Karneus ( both Hyperion),  French Sonatas with Nicholas Daniel (Virgin), Spanish Song with Joyce Didonato (Eloquentia), Mahler Songs and Tchaikovsky Songs with Christianne Stotijn (both Onyx) and Schumann Lieder with Alice Coote (EMI).
Live recordings from recitals at Wigmore Hall London for the ‘Wigmore Live’ label have included concerts with Lorraine Hunt Liebersen, Joyce Didonato, Christopher Maltman, Gerald Finley and Matthew Polenzani. He has made an award winning series of recordings with Ian Bostridge for EMI, including discs of  Schumann, Schubert, Henze, Britten, The English Songbook and La Bonne Chanson. His recent series of recordings with Gerald Finley for Hyperion – Ives, Barber, Schumann, Ravel and Britten – has been widely acclaimed and Barber Songs and then Schuman Heine Lieder won both the 2008 and 2009 Gramophone Awards and the Britten Songs disc won the 2011 Gramophone Award.
Recent and coming highlights in Julius Drake’s schedule include recitals in Madrid, Brussels and New York with Gerald Finley; in Moscow, Oslo and at the Schwetzingen Festival with Dorothea Röschmann; at La Fenice Venice, La Scala Milan and the Schubertiade Festival with Ian Bostridge; instrumental chamber music at the festivals of Delft, West Cork and Oxford; new recordings of Liszt with Angelika Kirchschlager, Shostakovitch with Christianne Stotijn and Schumann with Gerald Finley; performances of Janacek’s Zápisník zmizelého (The Diary of One Who Disappeared) in London, Stuttgart and Vienna with Christianne Stotijn and Mark Padmore; and four concerts, presenting the complete Mörike and Goethe Songbooks of Hugo Wolf, at London's Wigmore Hall.

ELIZABETH WATTS Soprano

Elizabeth Watts won the Rosenblatt Recital Song Prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 2007. In the same year she was awarded the Outstanding Young Artist Award at the Cannes MIDEM Classique Awards and the previous year the Kathleen Ferrier Award. She is currently an Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre, and a former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist. Elizabeth was awarded a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in February 2011.

Her critically acclaimed debut recording of Schubert Lieder for SONY Red Seal was followed in 2011 by an equally acclaimed disc of Bach Cantatas for Harmonia Mundi, with whom she has an exclusive contract.

Current and future plans include Zerlina Don Giovanni for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Susanna Le Nozze di Figaro for Welsh National Opera; Almirena Rinaldo for Glyndebourne on Tour; Mahler Symphony No 4 with the Philharmonia and Lorin Maazel and the RTE Symphony Orchestra; Messiah on tour with the OAE; Beethoven Symphony No 9 with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and John Storgårds; Bruckner Requiem with the Northern Sinfonia and Thomas Zehetmair; Handel Joshua with the RIAS Kammerchor, Berlin and a concert of Mozart arias at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.

Recent concerts have included Mozart Requiem with the Boston Handel and Haydn Society and Harry Christophers; Brahms Requiem with the LPO and Yannick Nezét-Séguin;  Mahler Symphony No 2 with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra; Kurtág Kafka Fragments for Soprano and Violin with Alexander Janicek and the Hebrides Ensemble; Mahler Symphony No 4 with the RLPO and Vasily Petrenko; Haydn The Seasons with the SCO and Olari Elts and Richard Strauss Orchestral Lieder with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Dmitry Sitkovetsky, as well as performances with all the BBC Orchestras, The English Concert, City of Birmingham Symphony and Hallé Orchestras.

Operatic appearances have included Marzelline Fidelio for The Royal Opera, Covent Garden; Susanna Le Nozze di Figaro for Santa Fe Opera and WNO for whom Elizabeth has also sung Pamina Die Zauberflöte; Serpetta in Mozart La Finta Giardiniera with the Academy of Ancient Music and Richard Egarr; Purcell King Arthur in Berkeley California and Handel L’Allegro Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato in London, both with the Mark Morris Dance Group, and Mandane in Thomas Arne Artaxerxes at the Linbury Studio/Royal Opera House which prompted Richard Morrison to write in The Times “But the pick of the bunch is Elizabeth Watts, who musters buckets of passion and thrilling coloratura as Xerxes’s anguished daughter Mandane.”

As a recitalist Elizabeth has performed at the UK’s leading venues including London’s Purcell Room, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester and at the Aldeburgh and Cheltenham Festivals. Future plans include returning to the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and a number of appearances at Wigmore Hall.

Elizabeth was a chorister at Norwich Cathedral and studied archaeology at Sheffield University before studying singing at the Royal College of Music in London. From 2005-2007 she was a member of English National Opera’s Young Singers Programme, where she appeared as Papagena Die Zauberflöte, Barbarina Figaro, Music and Hope in Monteverdi L’Orfeo and in Purcell King Arthur.

JAMES GILCHRIST Tenor

James Gilchrist began his working life as a doctor, turning to a full-time career in music in 1996.

James’ concert appearances include The Seasons and Damon Acis and Galatea (BBC Proms), Bach Cantatas (Monteverdi Choir Bach Pilgrimage and Bach Collegium Japan), Tippett The Knot Garden (BBC Symphony Orchestra), Monteverdi Vespers (The Sixteen), Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance, Ralph HMS Pinafore, Septimius Theodora and Haydn’s Nelson Mass (SCO), title role Judas Maccabeus (King’s Consort), Israel in Egypt (Norddeutscher Rundfunk and Collegium Vocale Gent), Mozart Requiem (Seattle), Alexander’s Feast (Salzburg), Christmas Oratorio (Zürich), Messiah (San Francisco and Detroit), War Requiem and Gerontius (Three Choirs Festival), Mozart’s C Minor Mass (Salzburg Festival)),  St Matthew Passion (in the US and at the RFH), St John Passion (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra), Britten’s Serenade (Gateshead), Pulcinella (Lugano), On Wenlock Edge (BBC NOW), Lechmere Owen Wingrave (CLS/Cadogan Hall), Ugone Flavio (AAM/Birmingham and London), Creation (Frauenkirche, Dresden, at Westminster Cathedral for the Bach Choir and on tour with Herreweghe), The Pilgrim’s Progress (Richard Hickox/Sadler’s Wells), Handel’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day (SWR/Germany), Oedipus Rex (BBC NOW), War Requiem (Dresden Philharmonie), Martin’s Der Sturm (Concertgebouw), Saul (Hamburg), King Arthur (Concert Spirituel/London), Athalia (Concerto Köln) and On Wenlock Edge (Endellion String Quartet/Leeds Lieder Festival). Among recent engagements are Haydn Seasons and Creation (Monteverdi Choir), Messiah (St Louis), Bach Cantatas (NDR Hannover) and St Matthew Passion (Koln and Amsterdam). James is a keen exponent of contemporary music and has performed in the world premieres of Knut Nystedt’s Apocalypsis Joannis (Oslo Philharmonic), Tavener’s Total Eclipse (AAM).

James is a versatile and prolific recitalist.  His imaginative programming has been heard in major recital venues including the Wigmore Hall,  Aldeburgh and Perth Concert Halls.    James performs regularly with Anna Tilbrook,   Julius Drake and harpist Alison Nicholls.

Operatic performances include Quint Turn of the Screw, Ferrando Cosi Fan Tutte, Scaramuccio in Strauss’ Ariadne Auf Naxos Gomatz Mozart’s Zaide (Istanbul), Vaughan Williams’ Sir John in Love (Barbican/Radio 3), Hyllus Handel’s Hercules (Berlin), Acis & Galatea (Berlin), Evandre in Gluck’s Alceste (La Monnaie in Brussels) and Purcell’s King Arthur for Mark Morris at ENO.

Amongst his many recordings are title role Albert Herring and Vaughan William’s A Poisoned Kiss (Chandos), St Matthew Passion(Gabrieli Consort/McCreesh), St John Passion(New College Choir/Higginbottom), Rachmaninov Vespers (EMI/Kings College, Cambridge), Schütz Sacred Music (The Sixteen/Collins Classics), Rameau Cantatas and St Mark Passion (ASV), Grainger Songs (Chandos), Kuhnau Sacred Music (The King’s Consort/Hyperion), Bach Missa Brevis (Collegium Instrumentale Brugense), and Bach Cantatas.  More recently James released a disc of Finzi song cycles, “Oh Fair To See”, (Linn Records), Elizabethan Lute Songs “When Laura Smiles” with Matthew Wadsworth and Leighton ‘Earth Sweet Earth’ and Britten’s Winter Words for Linn Records. James and Anna Tilbrook’s critically acclaimed recordings of Die Schöne Mullerin and Schwanengesang (Orchid Classics), have recently been released. The final Schubert cycle, Winterreise, is due for release later this year.

This season James has performed Die Schöne Mullerin at the Wigmore Hall,  Before Life and After (a new staged project with Netia Jones),  ‘Grand Motets’ on tour with Le Concert d’Astree,  Die Jahreszeiten Royal Flanders Philharmonic, Les Illuminations at the Aldeburgh Festival,and St Matthew Passion Rotterdam Philharmonic. Upcoming engagements include Britten’s Serenade for Tenor Horn and Strings with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Messiah with the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington,  Mozart’s Requiem in Moscow and St Petersburg,  a tour of Handel’s Theodora with Concert Spirituel and Haydn’s Creation in Salzburg with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra.

RICHARD WIGMORE

A former professional singer, Richard Wigmore is a writer, broadcaster and lecturer specialising in the Viennese Classical period, and in Lieder. He writes for Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine and other journals, and teaches courses in the history and interpretation of Lieder at Birkbeck College, London University. He appears frequently on Radio 3’s CD Review, is a regular lecturer on Martin Randall cultural tours, and runs his own music study events in the UK. Richard’s publications include Schubert: the complete song texts, numerous articles for dictionaries and anthologies, and the widely acclaimed Faber Pocket Guide to Haydn.

Julius Drake

Elizabeth Watts

James Gilchrist

Richard Wigmore

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