Tuesday, 9 December, 2014 – 19:30 at St John’s Smith Square

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Join us as we showcase young Australian performing artists. The Tait Chamber Orchestra comprising Australian musicians in the UK, conducted by Kelly Lovelady, and Jayson Gillham, winner of the 2014 Montreal International Piano Competition will perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 14 in E flat and Grainger’s Handel in the Strand.

Highlights also include soprano, Elena Xanthoudakis, singing Mozart’s concert aria Ch’io mi scordi di te? with Jayson Gillham and orchestra; Xenia Deviatkina-Loh will play Vaughan Williams’ beautiful The Lark Ascending; Yelian He and Adam Szabo will play Sollima’s exciting ‘duel’ for two cellos and string orchestra Violoncelles Vibrez!; and Australian composer and inaugural Tait Scholar, Kevin Penkin, premieres a piece for flute and orchestra entitled Changing Feet played by flautist, Nicola Crowe.

In honour of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of WW1, we are grateful that The MacMillan Estate has kindly allowed us to give a special performance of the Pie Jesu solo from Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet Requiem. Australian ballerina and new Tait Patron, Leanne Benjamin OBE, will teach the role to Sophie Moffatt, a student at The Royal Ballet School, accompanied by soprano, Marlena Devoe and pianist, Chad Vindin. Royal Ballet dancer, Calvin Richardson, will perform his own choreographic interpretation of The Dying Swan which he recently danced at the Royal Opera House accompanied by cellist, Adam Szabo and pianist, Chad Vindin.

The evening ends with the famous final scene from Act 1 of La Bohème sung by Jette Parker Young Artist soprano, Lauren Fagan, and tenor, Gerard Schneider, from the National Opera Studio.

www.taitmemorialtrust.org

ARTISTS
Kelly Lovelady conductor
Jayson Gillham piano
Elena Xanthoudakis soprano
Marlena Devoe soprano
Lauren Fagan soprano
Gerard Schneider tenor
Xenia Deviatkina-Loh violin
Adam Szabo cello
Yelian He cello
Nicola Crowe flute
Sophie Moffat dance
Calvin Richardson dance

PROGRAMME
Grainger. Handel in the Strand
Mozart. Piano Concerto No.14 in E flat, K 449
Vaughan Williams. The Lark Ascending
Mozart. Ch’io mi scordi di te? Non temer, amato bene. K 505
Kenneth MacMillan. Pie Jesu from his ballet Requiem
Saint-Saëns. The Dying Swan from Carnival of the Animals
Giovanni Sollima. Violoncelles Vibrez!
Penkin. Changing Feet (premiere)
Puccini. Che gelida manina…Si mi chiamano Mimi’ & ‘O soave fanciulla’ from La Boheme

Nicola Crowe was a Tait Awardee in 2009 as the recipient of the Commonwealth Bank Australia Award. This year she is the 2014/15 holder of the Sir Charles Mackerras Chair with the Southbank Sinfonia. This is a coveted and honoured position in the orchestra which is part sponsored by the Tait Memorial Trust.

Nicola will be playing 1st Flute in the Tait Chamber Orchestra and will be featured soloist in Kevin Penkin’s new work, Changing Feet, which has been specially commissioned by the Trust for our upcoming Winter Prom.at St John’s Smith Square on Tuesday 9th December at 7.30pm.

The biography below is from the Southbank Sinfonia website.

Nicola Crowe
Flute
Nicola graduated from the Royal College of Music in 2010 with a Master of Music with distinction, studying with Simon Channing and Jaime Martin. Her studies were generously supported by The Worshipful Company of Musicians, the Tait Memorial Trust and an Australian Bicentennial Scholarship. Prior to moving to London, she was awarded the Lenore Buckle Music Scholarship to study at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with James Kortum.

During her time at the RCM, she was invited by the College to participate in the Castleton Festival in America, under the direction of Lorin Maazel and was also awarded the 2010 All Flutes Plus Prize in the RCM Senior Woodwind Competition and the June Emerson Launchpad Prize with her wind quintet.

Since graduating, she has joined the Band of the Royal Yeomanry as their principal flautist and played with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra of the English National Ballet and with the Macao Orchestra.

As a soloist, she has performed recitals at St John’s Smith Square, St George’s Bloomsbury Church and as part of the New London Orchestra’s Young Performers Concert Series at the Foundling Museum. Whilst in Australia, she performed concertos with the Wollongong Symphony Orchestra, SBS Radio and Television Youth Orchestra and the Sydney Conservatorium Modern Music Ensemble.

Nicola is a member of the Dr K Sextet, a contemporary music ensemble passionate about playing and promoting new music. The sextet has commissioned works by young composers living and working in the UK and abroad. The group were artists at the 2013 Cheltenham Music Festival Composer Academy and were invited to attend the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe in 2012. They have also organised their own Dr K Music Festival, have recorded works for various composers and events and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

In her spare time Nicola loves to teach her many enthusiastic young students, explore London and plan holidays to sunny and warm destinations!

Did you know? Nicola is running the 2014 Oxford Half Marathon as part of a team of 25 Southbank Sinfonia musicians and staff. Find out more >

Quickfire Questions
What or who inspired you to become a professional musician?
After learning the flute for about 3 months, I announced to my family that I wanted to be a famous flautist like James Galway with not just one, but numerous golden flutes to choose from. I also thought I could combine my successful musical career with being an astronaut.

Watching my first teacher perform with an orchestra was really inspiring and she helped foster a deep love of music and desire for learning.

What is your earliest musical memory?
Trying out different instruments in our early years music class at my regional conservatorium in Wollongong, and hating the feeling of the violin strings on my fingers. When the flute came along however, I could make a sound on my first go (not as easy as it sounds!) and I told my mother there and then that that was the instrument I wanted to play.

Nicola’s place in Southbank Sinfonia is generously supported by the Sir Charles Mackerras Chair.

Thursday 12th June 2014 will go down as one of most successful and enjoyable events The Tait Memorial Trust has ever mounted in our 22 year history. The Royal Ballet School have been so generous by helping us to create such an inspiring evening.

Pictured below are three young Australian dancers; Kiely Groenewegan, Sophie Moffatt and Grace Robinson who sum up what we are trying to achieve. We want to help them achieve their dreams.

Their performances were superb in front of an audience including Lady Sainsbury, Sir Peter Wright, David Norman, Tony Dyson, Ken Smith (Queensland Agent General) and Richard Bonynge. Mark Annear’s masterclass was fascinating, the solo performances by Connor Barlow (Tait Awardee at the English National Ballet School), Kiely Groenewegan and the pas de deux with Grace Robinson and Harry Churches was sublime. Leanne Benjamin coached Sophie Moffatt on the Giselle, Act 1, Variation Pas de Six. The audience was enthralled…to see the work that goes into creating the magic we see at the theatre. The work is intense and incredibly disciplined. Such an honour to witness the process and to see the final result in the performances was a joy.

This is the beginning of a new scholarship fund for young Australian dancers studying at The Royal Ballet School. If you wish to join us please email James at james@taitmemorialtrust.org