Pinner Festival Choir, Soloists & Orchestra

PINNER MUSIC FESTIVAL CHOIR & ORCHESTRA 

Orchestra Leader: Rebecca Boyle

EMMA WALSHE (Soprano)

GRAHAM NEAL (Tenor)

JONATHAN BROWN (Bass)

Conducted by DAVID GOULD

This year, we will be performing Parts 1 and 2 of Haydn's masterpiece 'The Creation'. We will be singing in English with the soloists taking the parts of the 3 Archangels, Gabriel (soprano), Uriel (tenor), and Raphael (bass). The libretto follows the 6 days of creation as told in the book of Genesis; heaven and earth are created, followed by the sun and moon, land and water, plants and animals and finally man and woman. The score is fabulously inventive with wonderfully descriptive music, starting with the extraordinary and highly original orchestral introduction, the 'Representation of Chaos'. The chorus has a number of rousing numbers including the famous 'The Heavens are telling' and we will end, appropriately enough, with the joyous chorus, 'Achieved is the Glorious Work'.

After graduating in Music from Cambridge in 2008, Emma Walshe began her career in the Monteverdi Choir Apprenticeship Scheme under Sir John Eliot Gardiner. She has since become widely sought after as a soloist and consort singer, working with all the leading early music groups including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Tenebrae, The Tallis Scholars, Arcangelo, The Gabrieli Consort, The Sixteen, Polyphony and the Early Opera Company. Her career has seen her perform in some of the world’s most prestigious venues including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Wiener Konzerthaus, Felsenreitschule Salzburg, Kölner Philharmonie, Cité de la Musique Paris and the Royal Festival Hall. Solo highlights include Handel Dixit Dominus at Buckingham Palace and the Palace of Versailles; Bach St John Passion at the Lausanne Bach Festival; Bach Cantatas at King’s Place; Bach Mass in B Minor at the British Museum; Purcell Indian Queen at Stour festival.

Graham Neal is a graduate of the University of Surrey, the Knack opera course at the English National Opera, and Trinity College of Music. He continues his studies with Arwel Treharne Morgan. On the operatic stage, Graham has performed at The Royal Opera House, The English National Opera, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, l’Opera Comique, Iford International Arts Festival, and Grange Park Opera.

Graham is an accomplished ensemble singer, appearing frequently in concert, on television, and on recordings. He performs with The Monteverdi Choir, The English Concert, The King’s Consort, the BBC Singers, Philharmonia Voices, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Armonico Consort and Cappella Nova. He is also a member of the choir of the London Oratory Church. Solo appearances this season have included Handel’s Israel in Egypt in Christchurch Priory, Haydn’s Creation at Reading University, Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Warwick and Malvern, and an extensive tour of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610.

Jonathan Brown was born in Toronto and studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Western Ontario. After moving to England he continued his studies at the University of Cambridge as well as the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh with Sir Thomas Allen and Anthony Rolfe Johnson.

Operatic roles include Marcello (La Boheme, Royal Albert Hall), Belcore (L'Elisir d'Amore), Count Almaviva, Yamadori (Madam Butterfly ), Giove (La Calisto), Orestes (Giasone), Garibaldo (Rodelinda), Ariodate (Xerxes), Silvio (I Pagliacci), Malatesta (Don Pasquale), Masetto (Don Giovanni), Shepherd (Venus and Adonis) and Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas). He performed the role of Trojan (Idomeneo) for Sir Simon Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic in the Salzburg Easter Festival. He made his debut with Sir John Eliot Gardiner in Holland as the baritone soloist in a concert of Bach cantatas and thereafter was a regular soloist with performances in Zurich, Brussels and Paris. He features as a soloist in Purcell's Ode to St Cecilia and Dido and Aeneas for Harmonia Mundi.

Jonathan has recorded the baritone solos in the Fauré Requiem with the London Festival Orchestra for BMG and appears in the role of the Forester in Sullivan's The Golden Legend for Hyperion. Recent recordings have included world premieres of Wesley’s cantata Confitebor tibi (Priory) and Eccles’ Semele (AAM).

David Gould was a choral scholar at St John’s College Cambridge and later sang as a Lay Clerk with the choir of Westminster Cathedral. He has conducted the Saturday concert in the Pinner Music Festival since 2016. Before that he was the musical director of various local choirs including the Amici Chamber choir, Sine Nomine and the Stanmore Choral Society.

He is a very experienced consort and choir singer and has sung recently with both the Sixteen and the Tallis Scholars.