A journey through Britten’s re-imagined folksongs and his profound guitar masterpiece, the Nocturnal after John Dowland.
Programme
A selection of Benjamin Britten’s traditional folksong arrangements for voice and piano:
Ca’ the yowes
Avenging and bright
Oliver Cromwell
O can ye sew cushions
Come you not from Newcastle
The last Rose of Summer
Early one morning
The trees they grow so high
O Waly, Waly
The Salley Gardens
Sweet Polly Oliver
Sail on, sail on
The Miller of Dee
How sweet the answer
Nocturnal after John Dowland, Op.70
Gloriana, Op.53 - The Second Lute Song of the Earl of Essex
A selection of Britten’s traditional folksong arrangements for voice and guitar:
I will give my love an apple
Sailor-boy
Bonny at morn
Master Kilby
The shooting of his dear
The soldier and the sailor
Ca’ the yowes
Avenging and bright
Oliver Cromwell
O can ye sew cushions
Come you not from Newcastle
The last Rose of Summer
Early one morning
The trees they grow so high
O Waly, Waly
The Salley Gardens
Sweet Polly Oliver
Sail on, sail on
The Miller of Dee
How sweet the answer
Nocturnal after John Dowland, Op.70
Gloriana, Op.53 - The Second Lute Song of the Earl of Essex
A selection of Britten’s traditional folksong arrangements for voice and guitar:
I will give my love an apple
Sailor-boy
Bonny at morn
Master Kilby
The shooting of his dear
The soldier and the sailor
Emily Jennings |
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Described as ‘an extremely engaging singer with not only a marvellous instrument but a real gift for storytelling’ (Association of English Singers and Speakers), Emily is a Britten Pears Young Artist (Elizabeth Harwood Memorial Award holder), a SongEasel Young Artist and a Cincinnati Song Initiative Fellow. Emily graduated with Distinction from the Royal College of Music where she completed both an undergraduate and master’s degree as an award holder supported by an Alice Templeton award. Emily was awarded first prize for the Brooks Van Der Pump English Song Competition during her studies. She was also awarded 2nd Prize in the 2024 Association of English Singers and Speakers’ English Song Competition as well as 2nd Prize in the 2024 London Choral Sinfonia’s Leach Award for Singing Competition. Emily was also selected to perform in the live rounds of the 2024 Wigmore Hall International Song competition.
Emily is a passionate performer of art song with a particular fondness for folksongs and storytelling. She has performed at Wigmore Hall, the Britten Studio at Snape Maltings and the Cadogan Hall amongst many of the UK’s most exciting recital platforms. Emily has a long love of traditional folk music and frequently performs at some of the most exciting UK festivals including Glastonbury. On the concert platform Emily has performed with many of the UK and Europe's most exciting ensembles including the Utopia Orchestra and Choir, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Britten Sinfonia and Voices, and the London Handel Orchestra and Singers as part of events such as the BBC Proms, the Salzburger Festspiele and the Aldeburgh Festival. |
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Cassandra Mathews |
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Cassandra Mathews studied classical guitar at the Royal College of Music with Gary Ryan where she obtained a 1st Class Honours Bachelor of Music. She also received coaching from Chris Stell and extra lessons with Craig Ogden and Jakob Lindberg on the lute. She began her studies with John Draper from the age of twelve. During her time at the RCM, she took part in masterclasses with John Williams, Carlos Bonell, Jason Vieaux, and Julian Byzantine as well as performing at Queen Elisabeth Hall and the Purcell Room as part of “The Rest Is Noise” Festival 2013. She has also given chamber music performances at the Wigmore Hall, V&A Museum the London Film Museum. An event in April 2016 took Cassandra to the Instituto Cervantes, where she performed a selection of pieces by celebrated guitar composer Joaquin Rodrigo to his daughter Cecilia Rodrigo. She has also commissioned and premiered a number of works for guitar, violin and shakuhachi as a member of Illuminate Women’s Music in their 2018/2019 season.
Cassandra is particularly interested in collaborations with other artistic disciplines and took part in unveiling “Desvalidas” as part of the RCM Great Exhibitionists 2014 working with award-winning poet Isabel White and visual artist Dylan J Fox. She was the winner of the Lennox Berkeley Guitar Prize 2012 and was the given a Highly Commended Award for the annual Royal College of Music Guitar Competition 2014 and 2012. Cassandra represented the RCM at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart in an Erasmus exchange programme in 2012. She has also played in ensembles as part of the London Guitar Festival 2011 at King's Place and as part of the RCM Symphony Orchestra under Bernard Haitink. She has also recently formed Duo Madrugada with soprano Emily Jennings and performs a number of her own arrangements of music for voice and guitar. |
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Archie Bonham
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Archie Bonham is a British pianist based in London. He is currently the Adami Award for Collaborative Piano Fellow at the Royal College of Music in London based in the Strings Faculty. After undergraduate studies at the University of York, he completed a Masters in Solo Piano and an Artist Diploma in Collaborative Piano at the RCM, studying with Danny Driver, Simon Lepper, Kathron Sturrock, and Roger Vignoles. His studies were fully supported by the Needley Family Scholarship and the Viola Tunnard Trust.
In Summer 2024, Archie was the New Horizons Fellow in Vocal Collaborative Piano at the Aspen Music Festival and School in Colorado, working in the vocal studios of Renée Fleming, Carol Vaness, and Stephen King. During this time he performed art song recitals and chamber music in venues across Aspen. Last year, Archie performed at the Wigmore Hall, and at the Salle Cortot in Paris, as an official pianist for the Wigmore Hall French Song Exchange: a competitive year-long programme led by Dame Felicity Lott, François Le Roux, and Seb Wybrew. He is a Young Artist at both Britten Pears Arts, focusing on French Song with Véronique Gens and Susan Manoff. Recent recital engagements have taken Archie to venues across London including Wigmore Hall and St John’s Smith Square, as well as the Juilliard School in New York, the Zentrum für verfolgte Künste im Kunstmuseum Solingen and the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln in Germany. He has won pianist prizes in the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards 2023 at Wigmore Hall, the Ashburnham English Song Awards 2024 (with an additional prize for best duo), as well as nearly all the major awards for vocal collaboration during his studies at RCM. In September 2024 he competed with two singers in the live rounds of the Wigmore Hall/Bollinger International Song Competition. Equally at home in vocal repertoire and instrumental chamber music, Archie formed a piano trio, Trio Étoiles, in 2021 with Joe MacDonald and Carys Underwood as students at the RCM. He regularly performs in duo sonatas and various chamber combinations. Aside from his RCM work and freelance performing, Archie is a Senior Piano Tutor at Gresham’s School in Norfolk. |
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