Lunchtime Concert with
Royal Northern College of Music
Songsters
21 April 2017
Welcome from the Festival Chairman
I am delighted you are able to join us today for this fundraising event organised by the Trustees of the Friends of
Buxton Festival.
The Festival has grown over the past 38 years from a small Opera Festival into a packed international 17 day
event, presenting high quality new productions of operas suited to the Grade II* listed theatre in which they are
performed. The major concert and literary series which support the operas attract household names alongside
rising stars.
The new Chairman of ITV, Sir Peter Bazalgette recently joined us as an Honorary Vice President and says:
“I am delighted to be formalising my role at Buxton International Festival after many happy years of visiting whilst I
was Chairman of Arts Council England. The Festival gives access to world-class opera performances,
internationally acclaimed classical artists and popular authors and thinkers. It is a lively cultural event bringing
together all those who share a love of music, opera and books in the enviable location of the Peak District’s
beautiful spa town.”
The Friends of Buxton Festival are pivotal to this growth and success. More than two thousand members from all
over the country generously support us through annual subscriptions, donations and events. We could not continue
without you. Today gives me great pleasure because it is an opportunity to say a personal ‘thank you’ and to meet
so many important supporters.
I am delighted that we will be entertained by the RNCM Songsters. The Festival has a very special and close
relationship with the Royal Northern College of Music. Every year we audition some of their most promising opera
singers to join our Young Artists programme and many students spend the summer with us as interns, joining our
other volunteers to help run the Festival.
Thank you for supporting us today and my thanks to the Friends Committee and staff of Mottram Hall for helping to
organise such an enjoyable occasion.
I do hope you will enjoy your time with us today and join us again at the Festival in July.
Felicity Goodey CBE DL
Chairman
Buxton Festival
Royal Northern College of Music
Songsters
Alexandra Lowe - soprano
Ryan Davies - tenor
David McCaffrey - baritone
Rachel Fright – piano
Loveliest of Trees
Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad
1. Loveliest of trees
2. When I was one and twenty
3. Look not in my eyes
4. Think no more, lad
5. The lads in their hundreds
6. Is my team ploughing?
Pleading
Shepherds song
Armidas garden
The maiden
In Flanders
Down by the Salley Gardens
George Butterworth
David McCaffrey – Baritone
Rachel Fright – Piano
Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Ryan Davies – Tenor
Rachel Fright – Piano
Hubert Parry
Hubert Parry
Alexandra Lowe – Soprano
Rachel Fright – Piano
Ivor Gurney
Ivor Gurney
David McCaffrey – Baritone
Rachel Fright – Piano
The plough boy
The last rose of summer
Mai
William Shield arr. Benjamin Britten
Trad. arr. Benjamin Britten
Meirion Williams
Ryan Davies – Tenor
Rachel Fright – Piano
Love's philosophy
Roger Quilter
Alexandra Lowe – Soprano
O Mistress Mine
Weep you no more sad fountains
It was a lover and his lass
Ryan Davies – Tenor
Someday my heart will awake
We'll gather lilacs
Alexandra Lowe – Soprano
Roger Quilter
Ryan Davies – Tenor
Roger Quilter
Roger Quilter
David McCaffrey – Baritone
Ivor Novello
Alexandra Lowe – Soprano
Ivor Novello
David McCaffrey – Baritone
Rachel Fright – Piano
Rachel Fright – Piano
Rachel Fright – Piano
Rachel Fright – Piano
Rachel Fright – Piano
The Artists
Alexandra Lowe is currently studying for her Masters of Music at the RNCM, where she graduated with a First
Class Bachelor of Music degree in 2015. Awards include the Elisabeth Harwood Prize, the Joyce and Michael
Kennedy Award for Singing Strauss and the Joyce Budd Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Young Singers Bursary.
She is a recipient of a Silver Medal from the Worshipful Company of Musicians and of the Andrew Lloyd
Webber Foundation Sarah Brightman Scholarship. Recent roles include the title role in Theodora, Mrs. Coyle
in Owen Wingrave, Métella in La Vie
Parisienne, Fiordiligi Così fan tutte, Rose Maurrant Street Scene and Helena A Midsummer Night's
Dream. www.alexandralowe.co.uk
Rachel Fright started postgraduate study at the Royal Northern College of Music in 2014, having previously
studied Music at Pembroke College, Oxford, where she held the Instrumental Scholarship. Rachel studies
with Stephen Savage and David Jones and is supported by the Helen Mackaness Award. As a soloist, she
has had the opportunity to take part in masterclasses by Robert Levin, Philippe Cassard, Kathryn Stott and
Stephen Hough. Rachel specialises in vocal accompaniment, and has received regular song duo coaching
from Julius Drake and has been programmed with singers as part of the Bridgewater Hall ‘Introducing’ series,
RNCM Spotlight concert series, RNCM Day of Song and St Ann’s Church concert series. Whilst at the RNCM,
she has won the Clifton Helliwell Memorial Award, the Brodsky Prize, the Stella Bradshaw Award, the
Alexander Young prize and the Frost/Brownson Award for Accompaniment. In May 2015, she performed live
on BBC Radio 3 as part of a Young Artists’ Day concert, and in October 2016 she was chosen to represent
the RNCM at the prestigious Gerald Moore Award at the Henry Wood Hall, London. Rachel is an alumna of
the Oxford Lieder Festival Mastercourse, which she attended in October 2015, receiving tuition from Roger
Vignoles, Imogen Cooper, Robert Holl and Ann Murray.
Ryan Vaughan Davies is a young Welsh tenor studying under the tutorage of Peter Wilson at the Royal
Northern College of Music. He is a recipient of the Gwilym Gwalchmai Jones award from the RNCM and is
also a recipient of the Gethin Rhys Memorial prize. Since starting at the RNCM, he has sung in the chorus for
Schönberg's Gurrelieder in The Grieghallen, Bergen during their 250th celebrations, and later revisited the
work at The Edinburgh Festival's closing ceremony. He has also performed in the chorus for RNCM's
productions of Cosi fan Tutte, La Vie Parisienne and Theodora. He has also sung 1st man in Llangollen
Pavillion's Production of Sweeny Todd, Sondheim in which Sir Bryn Terfel and Wynne Evans starred. Ryan
has performed as soloist for numerous oratorios, including: Rossini's Petite Messe Solonnelle, Handel's
Messiah and Haydn's Nelson Mass. Ryan is looking forward to performing in the chorus for Longborough
Opera Festival this summer.
David McCaffrey is currently in his fourth year of study on the undergraduate course at the RNCM, under the
tutelage of Quentin Hayes. Since joining the RNCM, David has been involved in productions of Offenbach's
La Vie Parisienne, Lehar’s The Merry Widow and Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte as well as scenes from Menotti’s
The Consul and Britten’s Gloriana. Externally, he has performed the small role of Apparizione in Dorset
Opera Festival’s production of Verdi’s Macbeth and was part of the chorus in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.
On the concert platform, works include Vaughan Williams “Songs of Travel” alongside the RNCM Chamber
Orchestra, as well as performing at the RNCM’s Day Of Song. David has appeared as a soloist in various
charity concerts across the North of England, most recently for The Defence Medical Welfare Service in the
RNCM’s Concert Hall. David was awarded both the Elizabeth Harwood Memorial Prize and the Bessie
Cronshaw/Frost Brownson Song Cycle Prize at the RNCM.
The Students appear by kind permission of RNCM
0800 032 9919
Macclesfield, Cheshire
www.shacklefordpianos.com
0800 032 9919
Macclesfield, Cheshire
www.shacklefordpianos.com
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#$
Forthcoming Friends’ Events
Wednesday, 17 May
Music and Supper at
David Mellor Design Museum
6.30pm
David Mellor, Hathersage
Trio Volant
We are delighted to have been invited to hold our first event at the David Mellor Design Museum.
The museum showcases the work of David Mellor, one of the best known 20th century British
designers. The museum shows the full historic collection of his work and that of his son, Corin
Mellor, extending from marvellous examples of handmade silver cutlery to the traffic lights we stop at
every day. As a special privilege to our members attending this event the museum shop will stay
open for the start of the event and offer a 20% discount off all David Mellor designs. On arrival at the
Museum we will offer you a welcome drink before the evening’s entertainment provided by Trio
Volant, an excellent wind trio from the Royal Northern College of Music. We end the evening with
supper. Places cost £50 each.
Wednesday, 21 June
Music and Lunch at
Upper House, Hayfield
12 noon
Upper House, Hayfield
The Septentrion Duo
The stunning setting of Upper House at the foot hills of Kinder with spectacular views across the
picturesque High Peak landscape has to be one of the most tranquil of houses we visit. You feel like
you are miles away from civilisation yet Upper House is only a few miles out of the village of
Hayfield. Our event at Upper House will start with a drinks reception in the Courtyard before we
move across to the Great Hall which has been sympathetically renovated and now boasts new
banqueting chairs for added comfort. By kind permission of the Royal Northern College of Music
The Septentrion Duo will give us a harp recital and there will be a buffet lunch. For ease of our
guests we will be providing free mini bus transfers from Hayfield village up to the house.
Places cost £35 each including welcome reception, recital and lunch.
FRIENDS OF BUXTON FESTIVAL
GRAND PRIZE DRAW
2017
Win a Luxury Break for two at the
5* Belmond Reid's Palace, Madeira
A world renowned hotel set in subtropical gardens overlooking the Atlantic
Ocean, Belmond Reid's Palace has, for more than a century, been the ultimate
place to relax.
Win a 4 night £3,000 Luxury Break for Two at 5* Reid’s Palace Hotel, Madeira
‘Dates chosen by the winner ‘ Return flights from Manchester, Birmingham or London
‘Madeira airport transfers by chauffeur-driven Mercedes limo ‘ VIP welcome on arrival at Reid’s and a
tour of the hotel ‘ A deluxe en-suite room overlooking either the gardens or the sea ‘ Buffet breakfast
each morning ‘ One traditional Afternoon Tea on the Terrace
‘Dinner at one of the hotel’s exclusive restaurants on one evening ‘A tour of the hotel’s famous
gardens ‘ 500 EUR spending money
Tickets £10 each
Draw will take place at the Friends Dinner on 19 July at The Old Hall Hotel, Buxton
Prize does not include travel insurance or airport transfers in the UK
Prize must be taken before 30 June 2018 and excludes Easter and Christmas holidays
Full terms and conditions available on the Friends page on the Festival website
Friends of Buxton Festival
3 The Square
Buxton
SK17 6AZ
Patron Donald Maxwell
Chairman David Brindley
Registered Charity No. 513970