Princess Ida, or Castle Adamant

SONGS OF TRAVEL

Welcome to our 2022 / 23 season, Songs of Travel. It is the final instalment of our ‘Six Chapters of Enlightenment’ series here at the Southbank Centre.

The idea of a journey excites us all. Whether it is a new adventure or one we have made dozens of times before. Travel and the idea of leaving home left a deep impression on the British and European mindset in the 17th and 18th centuries. And, of course, it is one of the great literary metaphors with the promise of discovering something about ourselves on the way to our destination.

The 18th Century was a whirlwind of correspondences. International navigation was leaping forward with Captain James Cook’s maritime expeditions whilst newspapers, novels and engravings were distributing ideas and images in a manner previously unparalleled. As a result, the intellectual aspiration of the common man gained a wholly new stride. One which would reach beyond the bounds of the immediate and conventional into new realms of existence: far off lands, radical political thought, belief beyond convention and transports of the artistic soul which would make the desperate leap into the passions and turmoil of romanticism. The song of travel eventually becomes the realisation of self as hero in the flight from non-social space to the strange and wonderful of the 19th century: exoticism, opiate dreams, mesmerism, madness and the supernatural.

The music we’ve selected for the season reflects journeys that are physical and of the mind. It is the work of creative thinkers that were able to imagine unknown places through the descriptions of others, to put the fantastical to use to satirise the contemporary, to reimagine the past in new ways, to explore our individual freedom, our sense of collective belonging, and the need to travel to find their own place in

Thank you for joining us today and supporting not just the OAE but live performance by the whole

Princess Ida, or Castle Adamant

Wednesday 7 & Thursday 8 June 2023

7.00pm at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall

Music by ARTHUR SULLIVAN (1842 – 1900)

Libretto by WS GILBERT (1836 – 1911)

John Wilson conductor

Sophie Bevan Princess Ida

Benjamin Hulett Prince Hilarion

Robert Hayward King Hildebrand

Simon Butteriss King Gama/Narrator

Catherine Wyn-Rogers Lady Blanche

Bethany Horak-Hallett Lady Psyche

Marlena Devoe Melissa

Ruairi Bowen Cyril

Charles Rice Florian

Morgan Pearse Arac

Robert Davies Guron

Jonathan Brown Scynthius

Claire Ward Sacharissa

Narration written by Simon Butteriss

Semi-staging directed by Simon Butteriss

This concert is supported by Bruce Harris

Introduction

Act I

Pavillion in King Hildebrand’s Palace Search throughout the panorama

Now hearken to my strict command

To-day we meet From the distant panorama

We are warriors three If you give me your attention

Finale: P’raps if you address the lady

Act II

Gardens of Castle Adamant

Towards the empyrean heights

Mighty maiden with a mission

Minerva! oh, hear me And thus to empyrean heights

Come mighty Must!

Gently, gently I am a maiden

The world is but a broken toy

A lady fair of lineage high The woman of the wisest wit

Now wouldn’t you like Merrily ring the luncheon bell

Would you know the kind of maid Finale: Oh, joy! our chief is saved

Interval Act III

Courtyard of Castle Adamant

Death to the invader! I built upon a rock

Whene’er I spoke When anger spreads his wing

This helmet, I suppose This is our duty

Finale: With joy abiding

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Violins I

Julia Kuhn (Leader)

Silvia Schweinberger

Alice Evans

Iona Davies

Huw Daniel

Dominika Feher

Jayne Spencer

Stephen Rouse

Violins II

Rodolfo Richter

Henry Tong

Debbie Diamond

Simon Kodurand

Lucy Waterhouse

Veronique Matarasso

Violas

Dorothea Vogel

Martin Kelly

Annette Isserlis

Kate Heller

Cellos

Luise Buchberger

Andrew Skidmore

Catherine Rimer

Ruth Alford

Basses

Christine Sticher

Cecelia Bruggemeyer

Flute

Lisa Beznosiuk

Flute/Piccolo

Neil McLaren

Oboe

Daniel Bates

Clarinets

Katherine Spencer

Sarah Thurlow

Bassoon

Philip Turbett

Horns

Richard Bayliss

Martin Lawrence

Cornets

David Blackadder

Phillip Bainbridge

Trombones

Philip Dale

Tom Lees

Timpani / Percussion

Adrian Bending

CHOIR OF THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Greg Beardsell

chorus master

Sopranos

Emily Dickens

Fiona Fraser

Alice Gribbin

Angharad Gruffydd Jones

Emma Walshe

Claire Ward

Altos

Rebekah Jones

Rebecca Leggett

Amy Lyddon

Joy Sutcliffe

David Clegg

Matthew Farrell

Tenors

John Bowen

Robert Folkes

Oscar Golden-Lee

Oliver Martin-Smith

Nicholas Todd

Ben Vonberg-Clark

Basses

Francis Brett

Jack Comerford

Jon Stainsby

Daniel Gilchrist

Thomas Lowen

Philip Tebb

Repetiteurs

Michael Waldron

Alexandra Standing

Costumes

Made by Dreamchasing

Young Producers:

Sophia Vainshtok

Iremide Onibonoje

Ines Whitaker

Synopsis

ACT I

Princess Ida, betrothed in infancy to Prince Hilarion is today, twenty years later, due to be delivered to her bridegroom. Her father, King Gama, arrives without her, gleefully announcing that she has forsworn men and now rules a women’s university, where she teaches the triumph of brain over brawn and where no man may set foot. Hilarion’s father, King Hildebrand, declares war, taking King Gama and his three sons hostage until Ida changes her mind. Hilarion is certain his charms can win Ida back, so he and two friends, Florian and Cyril, set out for her university.

ACT II

At Castle Adamant, Princess Ida dazzles her disciples while her deputy, Lady Blanche, plots to overthrow her. Meanwhile, Hilarion and his two friends scale the castle walls and, finding themselves evidently male in a resolutely female safe space, scramble into girls’ academic robes just as Princess Ida appears. She admits them as women undergraduates but the dishonesty of their self-identification is discovered by Lady Psyche, Florian’s sister, and Melissa, Lady Blanche’s daughter, both of whom, for reasons of their own, agree to keep their secret. Melissa silences Lady Blanche too, by pointing out that if Hilarion takes Ida away to be his wife, Blanche can take her place. A drunken scuffle reveals the real identity of the boys and Ida, horrified at the violation, chains them up just as King Hildebrand’s vast army storms her castle gates.

The girls strap on their armour and yell defiance until they suddenly remember that they are conscientious objectors and leave Ida to fight alone. King Hildebrand finds he is unwilling to fight with women, so he unshackles King Gama to persuade Ida to allow her fate to be decided by unarmed combat between her three brutish brothers and the rather less rugged Hilarion, Cyril and Florian.The outcome is as astonishing as Ida’s subsequent meticulously reasoned decision is unexpected.

The grit that makes the pearl

In the spring of 1883 Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe was in the middle of a triumphant first run at Richard D’Oyly Carte’s Savoy Theatre. Carte had already astonished London by lighting his brand new theatre with electricity – a world first. Now he introduced a new innovation: a marshalled queuing system on the pavement outside, to help contain the enthusiasm of the crowds who flocked every night to see the smash of the season. Carte wasted no time signing his star writers to a new contract, requiring Gilbert and Sullivan to supply him with a new work at six months’

notice for the next five years. Feeling flush, Gilbert leased a country house near Pinner for the summer, and Sullivan visited him there to discuss their next project and play tennis. Spectators noticed that Gilbert “arbitrarily extended the regulation measurements of a tennis court to allow him to get his service in”.

Princess Ida was the opera that they discussed between volleys, and you might say that Gilbert employed rather the same technique there too. The pair were committed to their partnership, but Sullivan had lost heavily on the stock

exchange the previous autumn, and didn’t have much choice. Meanwhile in May 1883 he’d been knighted for his “distinguished talents in music”. Comic opera was now deemed to be beneath him. “Some things that Mr Arthur Sullivan may do, Sir Arthur Sullivan ought not to do” sniffed the Musical Times. Already, Sullivan had been chafing against Gilbert’s taste for magical plots and “topsy-turvy” comedy. But work on the new opera (Gilbert and Sullivan never used the term “operetta”) was already in progress, and it was clear that Gilbert was offering something different. With its three act structure (unique among their collaborations) and blank verse libretto, Princess Ida was the closest the pair had yet come to creating a conventional opera.

And like many conventional operas, it was based on a pre-existing work, Tennyson’s humorous narrative poem The Princess (1847). Gilbert had already given The Princess the once-over in 1870: a comic reboot in his own satirical style, with songs set to melodies borrowed from (among other works) Offenbach’s La Périchole and Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Now Gilbert adapted large stretches of The Princess for Sullivan’s use, and Sullivan liked what he read. “2nd act in good order – only wants a song for the Princess” he noted in his diary, around the time of that tennis match. “3rd act very nearly complete – left 1st act with [Gilbert] to make some alterations. Like the new piece as now shaped out, very much”. Rehearsals commenced in November; Sullivan worked through the night on Christmas Day to complete a new quintet for Act Two (he preferred to work in the early hours, when night offered some respite from London’s constant traffic noise).

Iolanthe closed on New Year’s Day 1884, and Princess Ida, or Castle Adamant opened less than a week later on 5 January – with an exhausted and rheumatic Sullivan

dosing himself with morphine and black coffee so that he could conduct the first night. It looked like a triumph: “the best in every way that Sir Arthur Sullivan has produced, apart from his serious works” declared the Sunday Times. “Humour is almost as strong a point with Sir Arthur Sullivan as with his clever collaborator, and when attained by such legitimate means it is simply irresistible”. Irresistible, that is, until it wasn’t. Within two months, the box office was flagging. It was clear that Ida was not going to be another Iolanthe, and when Carte duly submitted a request for a replacement within the statutory six months, Sullivan had already told friends that he had decided “not to write any more Savoy pieces”.

How the pair extracted themselves from that particular corner is another story (or you could just watch Mike Leigh’s TopsyTurvy), but Princess Ida has never quite shaken its early reputation as one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s also-rans. Matters weren’t helped by a catastrophic 1991 revival at ENO in which the film director Ken Russell relocated the action to a sushi bar inside a futuristic Buckingham Palace. Meanwhile Princess Ida has become a special favourite of diehard Savoyards, many of whom (present company included) maintain that it contains some of the pair’s very finest inspirations. Its subject matter has worked against it: to a modern audience, Ida’s all-female university isn’t self-evidently laughable, and Gilbert – in poking fun at the founding of Girton College Cambridge (1869) and

(even more topically) Westfield College in Hampstead (1882) – was certainly indulging the popular prejudices of his era.

But Gilbert was nothing if not an equalopportunities offender. If pioneering female scholars come in for a thorough leg-pull, so too does Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and – the one unvarying butt of Gilbert’s mockery – the complacent, pompous or just-plain-stupid male authority figure. The true target of Princess Ida’s satire is not idealism itself, but idealism untempered by realism: a logical premise carried to ludicrously illogical conclusions. The preposterous King Gama and his thick-as-mince sons can’t – and won’t – change.

In Princess Ida, however, Gilbert creates a character – rare in any satire – who learns and grows, and Sullivan gives her some of his most heartfelt music. The comic G&S are sparking at full power in the first and third acts: witness Gama’s If You Give Me Your Attention (one of their most mischievous list-songs) or the deadpan mock-Handel of This Helmet I Suppose. But in Act Two, from the Mendelssohn-like delicacy of Toward th’Empyrean Heights, through Ida’s noble (and wholly sincere) opening invocation Oh, Goddess Wise to the ravishing, bittersweet quartet The World is But A Broken Toy - and then on to the sparkling quintet The Woman of the Wisest Wit - the joint creativity of both Gilbert and Sullivan is at its peak, with a string of melodies unsurpassed even by their great continental inspiration (and rival) Offenbach. It’s been described as “Sullivan’s string of pearls”: tonight, on period instruments, those pearls will glint as radiantly as the day when they were picked.

RIGHT Princess Ida at the Savoy Theatre (engraving) from The Illustrated London News, 19 January 1884 Look and Learn / Peter Jackson Collection / Bridgeman Images

Biographies

Sophie Bevan

Recognised as one of the leading lyric sopranos of her generation, Sophie Bevan studied at the RCM where she was awarded the Queen Mother Rose Bowl for excellence in performance. She was awarded the MBE for services to music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2019. She works regularly with leading orchestras and conductors worldwide with recent and future highlights including concerts with the London, Bergen, Netherlands Radio, Royal Liverpool and BBC Philharmonic Orchestras, Aurora, Finnish Radio Symphony, Hallé, English Concert, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Concertgebouw, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, OAE and Swedish Radio Orchestras and has appeared regularly at both the Edinburgh and the BBC Proms Festivals. An acclaimed recitalist she performs regularly at prestigious venues including the Concertgebouw and Wigmore Hall in London as well as at leading lieder festivals. Sought after for her work in opera, Sophie’s recent and future engagements

include Ilia Idomeneo, Sophie Der Rosenkavalier, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, Dalinda in Ariodante and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at Covent Garden, title role in The Cunning Little Vixen and Fiordligi in Così fan tutte for WNO, Hermione in Ryan Wigglesworth’s The Winter’s Tale and Télaïre in Castor and Pollux for ENO, Melisande in Pelleas et Melisande for Dresden Semperoper, Freia in Das Rheingold at Teatro Real, Madrid and Governess in The Turn of the Screw for Garsington Opera. She made her debut at Glyndebourne Festival Opera as Michal in Saul and at the Salzburg Festival and Metropolitan Opera as Beatriz in Thomas Adès’ The Exterminating Angel.

Sophie lives in Oxfordshire with her husband, children and cocker spaniels.

Ruairi Bowen

A graduate of King’s College, Cambridge, and a finalist in the 2020 International Handel Singing Competition, Ruairi Bowen has collaborated with some of the leading conductors in the Baroque field including

Emmanuelle Haïm, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Stephen Layton.

Wider engagements have included St John Passion with Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Dvorak’s Requiem with Philharmonia Orchestra at Three Choirs Festival and Vaughan Williams’ A Cotswold Romance with Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra.

Current engagements include Jim Cocks in Robinson Crusoe for West Green House Opera, The Indian Queen with Le Concert d’Astrée, Earl Tolloller in Iolanthe for his debut with English National Opera, JS Bach’s B Minor Mass with Opole Philharmonic, Christmas Oratorio with Britten Sinfonia, Magnificat at Tilford Bach Festival and St John Passion with Polyphony, The Creation with the Hanover Band, Messiah with London Handel Orchestra and Vaughan Williams Sancta Civitas at Three Choirs Festival.

Recordings include participation in Proud Songsters, an album of English Solo Song with Simon Lepper, Percy Grainger’s Brigg Fair and Nathaniel Dett’s Music in the Mine for BBC Radio 3 and Stanford’s Mass Via Victrix with the BBC National Orchestra & Chorus of Wales conducted by Adrian Partington on Lyrita CD.

Jonathan Brown was born in Toronto and studied at the RCM (Toronto) 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 in La Boheme, Royal Albert Hall, Count Almaviva, Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, Giove in La Calisto, Orestes in Giasone, Garibaldo in Rodelinda, Ariodate in Xerxes, Silvio in Pagliacci, Malatesta in Don Pasquale, Masetto in Don Giovanni, Shepherd in Venus and Adonis and Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas. He performed the role of Trojan in 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.

He 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).

Opera, Grange Park, Garsington, Opera Holland Park. He has been a guest principal at ENO since 2008, where his repertoire includes roles by Puccini, Britten, Strauss, Ligeti, Lehar, Bernstein and Offenbach. At Aldeburgh Festivals he has performed Pierrot lunaire, Facade, Enoch Arden, Arlecchino, The Cricket Recovers, Ariadne auf Naxos, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and his own narrations to The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra and Peter and the Wolf.

Simon Butteriss

Was a chorister at Westminster Abbey, ran away to play The Winslow Boy in its first West End revival, was a member of the National Youth Theatre, read English at Cambridge and studied at the Royal College of Music Opera School.

He has sung roles at La Scala, Milan, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Barcelona Liceu, Aix-en-Provence, Paris Chatelet, Oper Köln, Royal Opera Muscat, Bregenzer Festspiele, Wiener Festwochen, Opera Zuid, WNO, Almeida Opera, Aldeburgh

He has sung the Gilbert and Sullivan patter roles at the Savoy Theatre with D’Oyly Carte, at the BBC Proms with Sir Charles Mackerras, with Deutsche Oper am Rhein, in Rome and on stages and concert platforms throughout the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. He appeared in Mike Leigh’s Oscarwinning G&S film Topsy-Turvy; wrote and presented the G&S TV series A Motley Pair, wrote and presented a film about George Grossmith, A Salaried Wit, (both Sky Arts TV) and co-wrote and directed the radio series I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major General (BBC), in which he also played Grossmith.

Other writing credits include A Gooseberry Fool (Sky Arts TV); Making Massinger (Wiltshire Creative commission), the new play for Let’s Make an Opera (Britten Estate commission) two opera libretti, Voltaire’s Amphibian and Signor Kelly’s Soufflé, and he has written and directed versions of operas and operettas for OAE, Philharmonia, Boston Symphony Orchestra, CBSO, RLPO, RTE Concert Orchestra, Brighton Festival, Covent Garden Festival and Raymond Gubbay. He has also directed numerous productions

for the National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company.

As an actor, his West End credits include The Winslow Boy, Sweeney Todd, The Relapse, Cats, An Italian Straw Hat, The Mikado, Witness for the Prosecution; he has played seasons with the RSC, at Chichester, Donmar Warehouse and the Lyric Hammersmith. Televison credits include By The Sword Divided, Let them Eat Cake (with French and Saunders), She Stoops to Conquer, Le Grand Macabre and several BBC period dramas.

Court Opera; Zurga in Pearl Fishers and Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte Reisopera, Holland; Demetrius in A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream and Papageno in The Magic Flute ETO; Ned Keene in Peter Grimes, Bern; Ottokar in Der Freischutz Opera Comique, Paris and High Priest in Semele at La Scala, Milan.

Robert Davies

Robert studied at Sheffield University and the GSMD.

Awarded the Erich Viertheer Memorial Award at Glyndebourne in 2003, Robert went on to appear as Mr Gedge in Albert Herring, Marcello in La Boheme, Count in Le Nozze de Figaro and Falke in Die Fledermaus for Glyndebourne on Tour. Other roles include the title roles in Figaro English Touring Opera and Rigoletto Bury

Excelling in a wide range of repertoire, performances include the World Premieres of Blitz Requiem in St Paul’s Cathedral with the RPO and The Sorrows of the Somme (Brian Hughes) Wales Millennium Centre; Bach’s Cantatas BBC Proms (Gardiner); Handel’s Saul (Israeli Camerata); Orff’s Carmina Burana in Barbican, London; Handel’s Messiah in Australia and USA, Bridgewater Hall (Halle Orchestra) and St David’s Hall, Cardiff (Florilegium); Purcell’s King Arthur Muziekgebouw Amsterdam (Vox Luminis); Bach’s St Matthew Passion Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht; and an Opera Gala in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Recordings include Monteverdi’s Vespers (OAE), BBC Music Magazine’s Choral CD of the Year 2022Bach’s Cantata 106 Actus Tragicus, Bach’s St John Passion; (Dunedin Consort/ Linn); Haydn’s Creation (Alte Musik /ORF), Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (Armonico Consort/Signum).

Winner of a Leonard Ingrams Award and the Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge Bel Canto Award, New Zealand born Samoan soprano Marlena Devoe also won the Tait Memorial Prize. She was a 2018 Alvarez Artist at Garsington Opera at Wormsley, where she made her debut as Alice Ford in Falstaff.

Marlena Devoe completed her MA in Advanced Vocal Studies with Distinction at the Wales International Academy of Voice. Prior to her studies in Cardiff, she studied at the University of Auckland and the Manhatten School of Music in New York. Her engagements have included Adina in L’elisir d’amore at the Verbier Festival, Mimì in La bohème for Lyric Opera, Dublin, and New Zealand Opera, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi for Singapore Lyric Opera, Gilda in Rigoletto for Opera Project, Violetta in La traviata for Clonter Opera, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Orion Orchestra, Messiah with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Verdi’s Requiem at Snape Maltings.

Engagements during 2022 / 2023 include the title role in Anna Bolena for Musica Viva, Hong Kong, First Nymph in Rusalka at the Edinburgh International Festival with Garsington Opera at Wormsley, Purea in Star Navigator for New Zealand Opera, Violetta in La traviata for the St Endellion Festival and A Night at the Opera with the Hallé.

Robert Hayward

Robert Hayward has been long established as one of the UK’s leading dramatic bass-baritones. He performs with all the major opera companies in the UK and with Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, Frankfurt Opera, Staatstheater Stuttgart, Nantes Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opéra de Montreal, Minnesota Opera, Dallas Opera. Roles include: Wotan, Wanderer in Ring, Jokanaan in Salome, title roles in Eugene Onegin, Mazeppa, Der fliegende Holländer, Scarpia in Tosca, Iago in Otello, Don Pizarro in Fidelio, Tomsky in The Queen of Spades, Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress, Kurwenal in Tristan, Bluebeard in Bluebeard’s

Castle, Prince Ivan Khovansky in Khovanshchina, Telramund in Lohengrin, Simone in Zemlinsky’s Florentine Tragedy. Engagements include: Roderick Usher in a double bill of Debussy’s The Fall of the House of Usher and Getty’s Usher House, Khovansky (WNO); Bluebeard (LA Opera); Salome (NI Opera); Moses und Aron (Komische Oper); Boris in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Chief of Police in Iain Bell’s Jack the Ripper, Jupiter in Orpheus in the Underworld, Commander in The Handmaid’s Tale (ENO); Alberich in Das Rheingold and Siegfried (LPO); and title role in Falstaff (Grange Festival). For Opera

North: Golaud Pelléas and Mélisande, Ford in Falstaff, Marcello in La Bohème, Escamillo in Carmen, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Malatesta in Don Pasquale, Count, Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro, Robert in Yolanta, Mandryka in Arabella, Shishkov in From the House of the Dead, Prus in The Makropulos Case, Balstrode in Peter Grimes, Jack Rance in The Girl of the Golden West, Gérard in Andrea Chénier, Wotan, Scarpia, Jokanaan, Der fliegende Holländer, Frank Maurrant in Street Scene, Don Pizarro, Amfortas in Parsifal and title roles Don Giovanni, Saul, Falstaff, Macbeth.

Bethany Horak-Hallett

British mezzo-soprano Bethany HorakHallett read Music at Leeds University and completed her training at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. She was a finalist in the 2020 Cesti Competition at the Innsbruck Festival, won Second Prize in the 2021 Handel Singing Competition. She has been Rising Star of the Enlightenment and a Samling Artist.

Bethany’s opera engagements have included Dorabella in Così fan Tutte for Garsington Opera, Kitchen Boy in Rusalka for Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester / Robin Ticciati as well as Žena Katya in Kabanova at Glyndebourne.

On the concert platform she has appeared with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment singing Bach, Handel and Haydn directed by Steven Devine, John Butt and Mark Padmore. She made her BBC Proms début with the Monteverdi Choir / Sir John Eliot Gardiner singing Handel’s Dixit Dominus, has joined the

Royal Northern Sinfonia / Dinis Sousa, toured with Holland Baroque, sang Bach and Handel with the Academy of Ancient Music, Handel and Mozart arias with Southern Sinfonia Baroque and has appeared with the English Chamber Orchestra and The Instruments of Time and Truth.

Amongst Bethany’s films and recordings are Cupid in John Eccles’ Semele with the Academy of Ancient Music / Julian Perkins, Bach and Telemann for OAE Player and Messiah for the Voces8 Foundation Live from London festival.

for Opera du Rhin Strasbourg and his first Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress in Coen, Limoges, Reims, Rouen and Luxembourg. In the UK, Benjamin has performed with Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opera North, Grange Park Opera, Opera Holland Park, Garsington Opera, Welsh National Opera, and in Sir Jonathan Miller’s staging of St Matthew Passion at the National Theatre. Benjamin has appeared regularly at the BBC Proms and is increasingly in demand as an interpreter of song.

This season Benjamin will sing Kudrjas in the Salzburg Festival’s production of Katya Kabanova under the baton of Jakub Hrůsa and later in the season at Opera de Lyon. Benjamin will also sing Davide penitente with Ivan Repusic and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, join the Philharmonie Zuidnederland for Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten under the baton of Duncan Ward, and sing Haydn’s The Seasons with the Academy of Ancient Music and Laurence Cummings.

Benjamin Hulett

Benjamin Hulett trained as a choral scholar at New College, Oxford and studied with David Pollard at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He was a member of the Hamburgische Staatsoper from 2005 to 2009. He has made his debuts at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Theater an der Wien in the world premiere of Kalitzke’s Die Besessenen, the Salzburger Festspiele, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, and Opera di Roma. He sang Luzio in Das Liebesverbot

Last season Benjamin sang Lysander at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Britten’s Serenade with the Sudwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim and Messiah with the Halle and Sofi Jeannin, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Christian Curnyn and the Kammerorchester Basel and Paul McCreesh.

Further highlights include Pulcinella at the BBC Proms under Martyn Brabbins and his debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in L’heure Espagnole (Dutoit), at Carnegie Hall performing Jupiter in Semele as part of an English Concert tour

around the USA and Europe (Harry Bicket), with the Teatro Real Madrid as Arbace in ldomeneo and David in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in concert with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra and Antonio Pappano. Benjamin’s wide range of recordings have received nominations and awards from BBC Music Magazine, Gramophone, Grammy, L’Orfee d’Or and Diapason.

Morgan Pearse

Morgan Pearse is one of the most exciting baritones of his generation. He studied at the Royal College of Music where he won the Lies Askonas Prize and Gold Medal at the Royal Over Seas League Competition. He went on to become a member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio and made his UK debut at ENO singing Figaro in The Barber of Seville. Recent and future opera highlights include Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte and Araspe in Tolomeo (Staatstheater Karlsruhe), Sid in Albert Herring (Buxton Festival), Belcore in L’Elisir d’Amore and Figaro in The Barber of Seville (New Zealand Opera and the State Opera of South Australia), Ned Keene in Peter

Grimes (Auckland Philharmonia), Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro (Opernhaus Zurich), baritone in Idalma (Innsbruck Festival of Early Music), Papageno (Russian National Orchestra) as well as covering the role of Billy Budd for the Bolshoi. Concert highlights include a solo recital at Wigmore Hall, concerts with Birmingham Philharmonic, Moscow Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Gabrieli Consort, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Academy of Ancient Music, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, King’s College Choir Cambridge and Messiah with the Tasmanian, West Australian and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, RSNO and the Sydney Philharmonic Orchestra.

Charles Rice

Current projects of Charles Rice include Marcello in La Bohème and Cecil in Gloriana English National Opera, Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream Opéra de Lille, Albert in Werther Irish National Opera, and Jacques Hury in the

world premiere of L’annonce faite a Marie for the Opéra de Nantes.

Other recent engagements have included Oreste in Iphigenie en Tauride, Eugene Onegin (title role) and Hamlet (title role) Opéra de Nantes, Rennes and Angers, Don Giovanni (title role) Opéra de Avignon, Cecil in Gloriana Teatro Real, Oronte in Médée Grand Théâtre de Genève, Simonson Ivanovich in Risurrezione

Wexford Festival Opera, Gabey in On the Town, and Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Japan, Figaro in The Barber of Seville and Maximilian in Candide The Grange Festival, Ned Keene in Peter Grimes Palau de Les Arts Reina Sofia

Valencia, Arthur Koestler in Benjamin, dernière nuit (world premiere) and Procolo in Viva la Mamma Opéra de Lyon, as well as Hermann in Les Contes d’Hoffmann Royal Opera House Covent Garden.

Past engagements have included Escamillo in Carmen Stadttheater Klagenfurt and Vorarlberger

Landestheater, Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos and Silvio in Pagliacci Opéra de Toulon, Sid in Albert Herring English Touring Opera, HK Gruber’s Gloria - A Pigtale Mahogany Opera Group tour (Linbury Studio, Bregenz Festival, Norfolk and Norwich Festival), roles in Candide Opéra National de Lorraine, Ned Keene in Peter Grimes Aldeburgh Festival, Bello in La Fanciulla del West English National Opera, Conte Robinson in Il Matrimonio Segreto Festival de Sédières, Morales in Carmen Royal Albert Hall, Angelotti in Tosca Grange Park Opera, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte and the Vicar in John Copley’s first Albert Herring, both for RAO. He covered Mr Redburn in Billy Budd Glyndebourne Festival Opera,

and sang the Cat in Stravinsky’s Renard Glyndebourne Jerwood Young Artist Programme.

Charles sang concerts at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, Canterbury Cathedral, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Chelmsford Cathedral, Cadogan Hall, Mayfield Festival and others. He studied with Mark Wildman at the Royal Academy of Music and the National Opera Studio.

Claire Ward

Claire Ward is a British/Irish soprano based in London. In 2022 Claire became an Opera Prelude Young Artist and returned to perform with Opera Holland Park in the chorus of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Opera roles include Frantik in the The Cunning Little Vixen at Opera Holland Park in 2021, and Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro which Claire understudied at The Grange Festival in 2019. In the same year Claire sang the role of Venus in John Blow’s Venus and Adonis with the Royal Academy of Music and made her Oxford Lieder debut. As a

Britten Pears Young Artist in 2019, Claire performed Bach Cantatas in the Snape Maltings Proms, conducted by Philippe Herreweghe. As a student, she regularly performed in the Kohn Foundation/RAM Bach Cantata series, as well as with the Ensemble Baroque de Toulouse, whilst studying in France.

Further concert highlights include Bach’s B minor Mass, Berlioz’ Les Troyens with the Monteverdi Choir, Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius with the Gabrieli Consort and a solo recital at St Martin-in-the Fields. 2022 City Music Foundation artist, Claire is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music and Samling Academy. She holds a First-Class honours degree from Durham University and attended the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Toulouse.

Oslo Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Sydney Symphony orchestras, and productions at English National Opera and Glyndebourne Summer Festival.

For many years Wilson appeared widely across the UK and abroad with the John Wilson Orchestra. In 2018 he relaunched the Sinfonia of London. Their muchanticipated BBC Proms debut in 2021 was described by The Guardian as “truly outstanding” and they are now much in demand across the UK, returning to the BBC Proms, Birmingham Symphony Hall and London’s Barbican Centre among other venues this season.

Wilson has a large and varied discography and his recordings with the Sinfonia of London have received exceptional acclaim and several awards including, for three successive years, the BBC Music Magazine Award in the Orchestral category for the Korngold Symphony in F sharp (2020), Respighi Roman Trilogy (2021) and Dutilleux Le Loup (2022) recordings. The Observer described the Respighi recording as “Massive, audacious and vividly played” and The Times declared it one of the three “truly outstanding accounts of this trilogy” of all time, after those by Toscanini (1949 and Muti (1984).

John Wilson

John Wilson is in demand at the highest level across the globe, regularly guest conducting the world’s finest orchestras: in recent seasons these have included the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Budapest Festival,

Born in Gateshead, Wilson studied composition and conducting at the Royal College of Music where, in 2011, he was made a Fellow. In March 2019, John Wilson was awarded the prestigious ISM Distinguished Musician Award for his services to music and in 2021 was appointed Henry Wood Chair of Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music.

Catherine Wyn-Rogers

Catherine Wyn-Rogers has appeared at the Bayerische Staatsoper, English National Opera, Royal Opera House, Teatro alla Scala Milan, Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, Semper Oper Dresden, Teatro Real Madrid, Netherlands Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera de Paris and Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Amongst her many performances, she has sung Erda and Waltraute in Valencia and Florence with Mehta, appeared at the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Sosostris in The Midsummer Marriage, and made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera as Adelaide in Arabella. Catherine has also performed for the Salzburg, Verbier, Aldeburgh, Edinburgh and Enescu festivals as well as the BBC Proms.

On the concert platform, she has appeared with Slatkin, Haitink, Andrew Davis, Colin Davis, Rozhdestvensky, Mackerras, Norrington, Gardner and Barenboim. Her numerous recordings include The Dream of Gerontius with Barenboim, Samson with Harry Christophers, Mozart’s Vespers with Trevor Pinnock for DG and Peter Grimes with the LSO and Sir Colin Davis.

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Making the Costumes

As part of the Dreamchasing Young Producers programme, three students at Acland Burghley School, Sophia Vainshtok, Iremide Onibonoje and Ines Whitaker, worked with OAE staff to produce the costumes for this production. This involved a range of techniques used in the production of costume and props for film and theatre: making shaped body templates, cutting and shaping foam sheet and using adhesives, primers and paints to achieve an outcome fit for public performance.

Our work at Acland Burghley School

In September 2020, we took up permanent residence at Acland Burghley School in Camden, North London. The residency –a first for a British orchestra – allows us to live, work and play amongst the students of the school.

Three offices have been adapted for our administration team. We use the Grade II-listed school assembly hall as a rehearsal space, with plans to refurbish it under the school’s ‘A Theatre for All’ project. The school isn’t just our landlord or physical home. Instead, it allows us to build on twenty years of work in the borough through OAE’s long-standing partnership with Camden Music. Having already worked in eighteen of the local primary schools that feed into ABS, the plans moving forward are to support music and arts across the school into the wider community. Our move underpins our core enlightenment mission of universal engagement, of access without frontiers.

What do backflips, smoke machines and baroque drums all have in common?

Answer: our first video collaboration with Acland Burghley students. We teamed up with year 10 students who performed a dance that they choreographed for their GCSE exam, accompanied by us performing Rameau’s ‘Danse des

Sauvages’ from Les Indes Galantes. After taking inspiration from baroque dances on YouTube and being drawn to the distinctive rhythmic pulse in the Rameau, the pupils sparked enthusiastic discussion with our players to allow the choreography and music to evolve hand in hand. They also had their say in the direction and recording of the music video, which you can watch on our YouTube channel.

We brought The Moon Hares, an opera for young families which we commissioned in 2019, into the school hall and performed it alongside pupils from ABS as well as Gospel Oak and Kentish Town primary schools. The electrifying performance included music both old and new, with sections from Purcell’s 17th century opera Dioclesian mixed with original, modern music by James Redwood.

There’s also been a bustle of activity away from the camera in our ongoing private classroom education. We’ve delivered numerous interactive workshops for all students in Years 7, 8 and 9, including an exploration of the orchestra’s instruments, illustrated sessions on blues and jazz compositional techniques as part of curriculum studies and a study a day for all GCSE music students on Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.4.

Dreamchasing Young Producers

The value of our residency in Acland Burghley School can be realised in many ways beyond the immediate practice of orchestral musicianship.

One of the key objectives in our mission is to lift aspirations and broaden horizons for life beyond school. We want to help students leave school with richer CVs and stronger professional prospects.

One great way to do that is to mentor the next generation in all those things we have learned as an organisation. At the start of the 2021 / 2022 school year, we launched our Young Producers’ programme in which we offer mentoring, training and work-placement apprenticeship so that the young people in our new community acquire essential skills in management and production, from budgets, compliance and risk assessment to camera operation and stage design.

We are proud of our first cohort, who have already learned so much and become a key part of our working routine. They will one day graduate as accredited producers

and become the mentors, at our side, for future recruits.

More than just an extra-curricular enterprise, this is a programme that we expect to connect with sixth-form education in the new government T Level examination programme.

Young Producers

Armin Eorsi

Harvey O’Brien

Iremide Onibonoje

Jessica Sexton-Smith

Matas Juskevicius

Michael Hau

Nathan Kilby

Raphael Thornton

Riley Silver

Sidney Crossing

Sophia Vainshtok

Tom Cohen

Daniel Miliband

Jaeden Ferritto

Sacha Cross

Daniel Wilton-Ely

Ines Whitaker

Alex Parry

In 1986, a group of inquisitive London musicians took a long hard look at that curious institution we call the Orchestra, and decided to start again from scratch. They began by throwing out the rulebook. Put a single conductor in charge? No way. Specialise in repertoire of a particular era? Too restricting. Perfect a work and then move on? Too lazy. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was born.

And as this distinctive ensemble playing on period-specific instruments began to get a foothold, it made a promise to itself. It vowed to keep questioning, adapting and inventing as long as it lived. Residencies at the Southbank Centre and the Glyndebourne Festival didn’t numb its experimentalist bent. A major record deal didn’t iron out its quirks. Instead, the OAE examined musical notes with ever more freedom and resolve.

That creative thirst remains unquenched. The Night Shift series of informal performances are redefining concert formats. Its former home at London’s Kings Place has fostered further diversity of planning and music-making. The ensemble has formed the bedrock for some of Glyndebourne’s most groundbreaking recent productions.

In keeping with its values of always questioning, challenging and trailblazing, in September 2020, the OAE became the resident orchestra of Acland Burghley School, Camden. The residency – a first for a British orchestra – allows the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment to live, work and play amongst the students of the school.

Now more than thirty years old, the OAE is part of our musical furniture. It has even graced the outstanding conducting talents of John Butt, Elder, Adam Fischer, Iván Fischer, Jurowski, Rattle and Schiff with a joint title of Principal Artist. But don’t ever think the ensemble has lost sight of its founding vow. Not all orchestras are the same. And there’s nothing quite like this one.

The OAE Team

Chief Executive

Crispin Woodhead

Chief Operating Officer

Edward Shaw

Finance & Governance Director

Pascale Nicholls

Development Director

Harry Hickmore

Education Director

Cherry Forbes

Marketing Director

Doug Buist

Projects Director

Jo Perry

Head of Digital Content

Zen Grisdale

Acting Projects Director

Sophie Adams

Deputy Development Director

Natalie Docherty

Finance Manager

Fabio Lodato

Head of Individual Giving

Alisdair Ashman

Development Manager

Kiki Betts-Dean

Ticketing & Data Manager

Paola Rossi

Acting Projects Manager

Ed Ault

Accounts Officer

Chloe Tsang

Development Officer

Luka Lah

Education Officer

Andrew Thomson

Marketing Officer

Dora Tsang

Projects Officer

Sofia Swenson-Wright

Social Media & Digital Content Officer

Shyala Smith

Orchestra Consultant

Philippa Brownsword

Choir Manager

David Clegg

Librarian

Roy Mowatt Leaders

Huw Daniel

Kati Debretzeni

Margaret Faultless

Matthew Truscott

Players’ Artistic Committee

Adrian Bending

Steven Devine

Andrew Roberts

Katharina Spreckelsen

Christine Sticher

Principal Artists

John Butt

Sir Mark Elder

Adam Fischer

Iván Fischer

Vladimir Jurowski

Sir Simon Rattle

Sir András Schiff

Emeritus Conductors

William Christie

Sir Roger Norrington

Life President

Sir Martin Smith

Board of Directors

Imogen Overli [Chair]

Adrian Bending

Daniel Alexander

Steven Devine

Denys Firth

Adrian Frost

Alison McFadyen

David Marks

Rebecca Miller

Andrew Roberts

Katharina Spreckelsen

Matthew Shorter

Christine Sticher

Dr. Susan Tranter

Crispin Woodhead

OAE Trust

Adrian Frost [Chair]

Mark Allen

Paul Forman

Steven Larcombe

Imogen Overli

Rupert Sebag-Montefiore

Maarten Slendebroek

Sir Martin Smith

Caroline Steane

Jessica Kemp

Honorary Council

Sir Martin Smith [Chair]

Sir Victor Blank

Edward Bonham Carter

Cecelia Bruggemeyer

Nigel Jones

Max Mandel

Marshall Marcus

Julian Mash

Greg Melgaard

Roger Montgomery

Susan Palmer OBE

Jan Schlapp

Diane Segalen

Susannah Simons

Lady Smith OBE

Emily Stubbs

Rosalyn Wilkinson

Mark Williams

Principal Patrons

John Armitage Charitable Trust

Denys and Vicki Firth

Adrian Frost

Imogen Overli

Sir Martin and Lady Smith OBE

Season Patrons

Julian and Annette Armstrong

Nigel Jones and Françoise Valat-Jones

Philip and Rosalyn Wilkinson

Mark and Rosamund Williams

Project Patrons

Ian S Ferguson CBE and Dr Susan Tranter

Bruce Harris

Selina and David Marks

ABS Circle

Mark and Susan Allen

Sir Victor and Lady Blank

Peter Cundill Foundation

Sir Martin and Lady Smith OBE

Aria Patrons

Steven Larcombe

Peter and Veronica Lofthouse

Stanley Lowy

Gary and Nina Moss

Stephen and Penny Pickles

Rupert Sebag-Montefiore

Maarten and Taina Slendebroek

Caroline Steane

Eric Tomsett

Chair Patrons

Mrs Nicola Armitage

– Education Director

Victoria and Edward Bonham Carter

– Principal Trumpet

Katharine Campbell

– Violin

Anthony and Celia Edwards

Thank you

– Principal Oboe

Claire Espiner

– Cello

James Flynn KC

– Co-Principal Lute / Theorbo

Paul Forman

– Co-Principal Cello / Violin /

Co-Principal Horn

Jonathan Gaisman

– Viola

Andrew Green KC and Jennifer Hirschl

– Principal Clarinet

Michael and Harriet Maunsell

– Principal Keyboard Christina

– Flute

Jenny and Tim Morrison

– Second Violin

Andrew Nurnberg

– Co-Principal Oboe

Professor Richard Portes

CBE FBA

– Co-Principal Bassoon

John and Rosemary Shannon

– Principal Horn

Sue Sheridan OBE

– Education

Crispin Woodhead and Christine Rice

– Principal Timpani

Education Patrons

Sir Timothy and Lady Lloyd

Susan Palmer OBE

Andrew and Cindy Peck

Professor Richard Portes

CBE FBA

Associate Patrons

Charles and Julia Abel Smith

Damaris Albarrán

Noël and Caroline Annesley

Sir Richard Arnold and Mary Elford

Hugh and Michelle Arthur

George and Kay Brock

David and Marilyn Clark

David Emmerson

Jonathan Parker Charitable Trust

Roger Heath MBE and Alison Heath MBE

Peter and Sally Hilliar

Kristin Konschnik

Kathryn Langridge

Moira and Robert Latham

Sir Timothy and Lady Lloyd

Roger Mears and Joanie Speers

David Mildon in memory of Lesley Mildon

John Nickson and Simon Rew

Andrew and Cindy Peck

Peter Rosenthal

Michael Spagat

Emily Stubbs and Stephen McCrum

Roger and Pam Stubbs

Paul Tarrant and Jenny Haxell

Simon and Karen Taube

Shelley von Strunckel

Mr J Westwood

Young Ambassador

Patrons

Jessica Kemp and Alex Kemp

Breandán Knowlton

Young Associate

Natalie Docherty

Young Patrons

Marina Abel Smith

Marianne and William Cartwright-Hignett

Peter Yardley-Jones

Gold Friends

Michael Brecknell

Gerard Cleary

Mr and Mrs C Cochin De Billy

Chris Gould

Alison and Ian Lowdon

Silver Friends

Dennis and Sheila Baldry

Haylee and Michael Bowsher

Tony Burt

Christopher Campbell

Sir Anthony and Lady Cleaver

David Cox

Stephen and Cristina Goldring

Rachel and Charles Henderson

Malcolm Herring

Patricia Herrmann

Rupert and Alice King

Anthony and Carol Rentoul

Stephen and Roberta Rosefield

Bridget Rosewell

David and Ruth Samuels

Susannah Simons

Her Honour Suzanne Stewart

Bronze Friends

Tony Baines

Penny and Robin Broadhurst

Graham and Claire Buckland

Dan Burt

Michael A Conlon

Mrs SM Edge

Mrs Mary Fysh

Mr Simon Gates

Martin and Helen Haddon

Ray and Liz Harsant

The Lady Heseltine

Mrs Auriel Hill

Rose and Dudley Leigh

Julian Markson

Stuart Martin

Richard I Morris Jr

Mike Raggett

Hugh Raven

Alan Sainer

Matthew and Sarah Shorter

Mr and Mrs Tony Timms

Mrs Joy Whitby

David Wilson

OAE Experience Supporters

The 29th May 1961 Charity

Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation

Henocq Law Trust

Stanley Picker Trust

Thriplow Charitable Trust

Rising Stars Supporters

Idlewild Trust

Fenton Arts Trust

The Garrick Charitable Trust

Julian and Annette Armstrong

Old Possum’s Practical Trust

The Michael Marks

Charitable Trust

Thriplow Charitable Trust

The 29th May 1961 Charity

Trusts & Foundations

Apax Foundation

Albert and Eugenie Frost

Music Trust

Arts Council England

The Brian Mitchell

Charitable Settlement

The Britford Bridge Trust

The Charles Peel

Charitable Trust

Dreamchasing Foundation

Esmee Fairbairn Foundation

The Foyle Foundation

The Geoffrey Watling Charity

John Lyons Charity

The Linbury Trust

Orchestras Live

The Patrick Rowland Foundation

Paul Hamlyn Foundation

Peter Cundill Foundation

Skyrme Hart Charitable Trust

Steel Charitable Trust

The Vintners’ Company

Corporate Supporters

Mark Allen Group

Champagne Deutz

Swan Turton

OAE Education 2022 / 23

A programme to involve, empower and inspire

Early Years and Key Stage 1 Programmes

The Spring Term is a peak time for our work in schools for Early Years (up to 5 years old) and Key Stage 1 (KS1, pupils from 5 to 7 years old) with workshops and concerts from south to north.

The King of the Sea project introduces children at schools in our five partner boroughs in London – Camden, Brent, Merton, Wandsworth and Ealing – to the music of Handel and Purcell through an environment-themed story. On board the Sailboat Malarkey, our young adventurers meet Poseidon, the King of the Sea, who is jealously guarding his treasure chest. This turns out to be the junk people on land have thrown away, but we discover how it can be given a second life being recycled as instruments to make music.

Over 650 KS1 pupils in our partner London boroughs took part in The Magic of Mozart project. This delivers

a workshop with OAE players in each participating school followed by attending a concert. Pupils learn about the different instruments and sounds of the orchestra and explore music including Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 and a participatory version of his ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ variations (arranged by James Redwood).

In addition, the team has travelled for residencies in York and County Durham to work in schools and give performances of The King of the Sea and Papageno and the Bird That Would Be Free. Our educational residencies also create opportunities for engaging with communities more widely. As part of our ongoing work in North Norfolk we have given a chamber concert in North Walsham, whilst our work in County Durham and York will see events as part of the Durham Vocal Festival, concerts at the University of York and a family concert at the National Centre for Early Music.

OAE Educational Activity in 2023

Principal Residency at Acland Burghley School

Acland Burghley School is a home for our players, staff and governance. It is also a crucial hub for our educational programme. Here we engage students in a range of different programmes that support curricular and extra-curricular activity from dance projects to our own unique jamming sessions, Musical Connections, and our Dreamchasing Young Producers programme. We bring the school community into our musical world through workshops, access to rehearsals and concerts and carefully curated Encounter Sessions where students have their own unique introduction to the OAE.

National Residencies

For many years, the OAE has been committed to a national programme of engagement in underserved communities. In 2023, that work continues in key residencies in North Walsham, Ipswich, York, Durham and King’s Lynn with community concerts, workshops, programmes for early years (TOTS), and specially curated programmes for schools (The Magic Flute and The Life of the Sea) based on the core repertoire of the OAE.

In London Schools

The OAE has long-established relationships with many schools across London. In harmony with the national plan, the OAE will offer The Magic of Mozart and The Life of the Sea to young people from Camden, Brent, Merton, Wandsworth and Ealing.

Special Needs

A key priority for the OAE Education team is to respond meaningfully to the additional educational needs of young people. We are proud to be working with students at Swiss Cottage Special School, Camden, and Thomas Worsley Special School, Ipswich, as part of the Musical Connections project that is also a crucial component of our residency at Acland Burghley School.

Alongside a choir of 1,500 in a musical spectacular (Something Special) at the Royal Albert Hall, we will be sharing music created by young people from Great Ormond Street and University College Hospital Schools as well as students from Swiss Cottage Special School.

For Families

Throughout the year, we present specially curated events for families. These include OAE TOTS concerts at the Southbank Centre (Pack Your Bags), OAE TOTS FUNharmonics workshops with the LPO and The Magic Flute at the York Rise Street Party in our home borough of Camden.

Developing Young Talent

The OAE is committed to developing the next generation of talent in the following programmes:

OAE Experience scheme to help aspiring young professional musicians develop in historically informed performance practice.

OAE Rising Stars is a biennial competitive programme for debutant singers, offering high-profile opportunities with the OAE on the international stage.

Suffolk Young Strings Project is a project to encourage players to create new compositions inspired by baroque music.

Our participants come from a wide range of backgrounds and we pride ourselves in working flexibly, adapting to the needs of local people and the places where they live. The extensive partnerships we have built up over many years ensure maximum and lasting impact.

We take inspiration from the OAE’s repertoire, instruments and players. This makes for a vibrant, challenging and engaging programme where everyone is involved; players, animateurs, composers, participants, teachers, partners and supporters all have a valued voice.

We do hope you can join us for some of these events! Please contact us if you would like further details on how to attend or support these projects.

Become a Friend!

Without the generosity of our Friends, the OAE would not exist.

When you become an OAE Friend, you join us in bringing great music to life. We then give you a front-row and behind-the-scenes view of our work, so that you can see the impact that your donation really makes. This includes supporting our ambitious season of concert performances, digital productions on OAE Player, improving access to music through our Education programme, and our community work at Acland Burghley School.

Whether you wish to watch the rehearsals or get to know the players, a Friends membership offers a heightened OAE concert-going experience and allows you to support the orchestra you love. With your help, we can keep the music playing.

Become a Friend for as little as £50 a year and receive the following benefits:

• Priority booking

• Access to open rehearsals

• Get to know the players

• Regular updates from the orchestra.

To become a Friend, scan the QR code, visit oae.co.uk/support-us or contact us at development@oae.co.uk or 020 8159 9317

Welcome to the Southbank Centre

We’re the largest arts centre in the UK and one of the nation’s top visitor attractions, showcasing the world’s most exciting artists at our venues in the heart of London. We’re here to present great cultural experiences that bring people together, and open up the arts to everyone.

The Southbank Centre is made up of the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, Hayward Gallery, National Poetry Library and Arts Council Collection. We’re one of London’s favourite meeting spots, with lots of free events and places to relax, eat and shop next to the Thames.

We hope you enjoy your visit. If you need any information or help, please ask a member of staff. You can also write to us at Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX, or email hello@southbankcentre.co.uk

Subscribers to our email updates are the first to hear about new events, offers and competitions. Just head to our website and sign up.

2023/24 Season

HAYDN First and Last

Wednesday 25 October

BACH Christmas Oratorio

Saturday 2 December

Sunday 3 December

THE FAIRY QUEEN: THREE WISHES

Wednesday 17 January

MOZART Love is in the air

Thursday 22 February

BACH Easter Oratorio

Wednesday 27 March

SIBELIUS Symphony No. 5

Wednesday 3 April

MENDELSSOHN

The Complete Symphonies

Wednesday 24 April

Thursday 25 April

Friday 26 April

Introducing Club OAE...

... our new free-to-all digital community.

Like all the best clubs we want to make it a place where you’ll explore the music you’re a fan of, enjoy special offers, get involved in competitions and other activities, be part of our creative conversation and have plenty of fun.

Find out more and sign-up now at oae.co.uk/club

Be in our Club.