Classical and Jazz: Preview - High notes for top class sopranos
Published: 2 December, 2010
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR
THERE’S a stunning parade of fine sopranos and mezzo-sopranos singing over the next week in all sorts of concerts, recitals, fundraisers and jazz gigs. Appropriately enough, Dame Felicity Lott is leading the parade tomorrow evening (Friday) singing at a delightful Kings Place concert of 19th-century songs sung in the salons of Paris by such composers as Rossini, Debussy, Faure and Offenbach. She’ll be accompanied by Isabelle Moreti, reputedly the greatest French harpist of recent decades.
Also singing on Friday evening are two of our finest jazz singers. Glorious songstress Norma Winstone is helping to raise funds for London’s homeless at Shoreditch Church while Anita Wardell is displaying her formidable technique at the Forge arts venue in Camden Town.
Saturday evening has quite a choice too. There’s a real treat for early music fans at the Wigmore Hall where renowned French soprano Sandrine Piau will be singing from Purcell’s Harmonia Sacra volumes of sacred songs with Les Talens Lyriques, a leading European early-music ensemble.
Also on Saturday evening, Highgate soprano Sarah Probert is singing in Cholmeley Choral Society’s rendering of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at St Mary’s Brookfield.
On Tuesday, ever-popular soprano Lesley Garrett is leading the singing at the Whittington Hospital Charity Concert being held at Kings Place.
Next Thursday lunchtime, young soprano Kristiana Lian is singing classical pieces with a Christmas feeling at St Pancras Parish Church in Euston Road.
On Thursday evening, Tavistock Clinic family therapist Kate Daniels will be demonstrating that singing is good for you when she takes to the Map Café stage in Kentish Town for a gig with guitarist John Etheridge and double bassist Alec Dankworth.