Samling Artist Showcase at Wigmore Hall

The Samling Artist Showcase at Wigmore Hall takes place on Friday 8 November 2019, an annual recital highlighting the young artists supported by the Samling Institute for Young Artists. This year the performers are soprano Claire Lees (Samling Artist 2017, Oscar in Opera Holland Park's 2019 Young Artist performance of Un ballo in maschera), mezzo-soprano Anna Stephany (Samling Artist 2005, last seen in Mendelssohn's Elijah with the OAE), tenor Filipe Manu (Samling Artist 2018, whom we saw in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi with the London Schools Symphony Orchestra) and baritone Dominic Sedgwick (Samling Artist 2017, currently a Jette Parker Young Artist at Covent Garden), accompanied by pianists Joseph Middleton and Somi Kim. They will be joined by the actor Sir Simon Russell Beale for a programme entitled Come into the Garden, with a variety of garden themed songs from Schumann and Wolf to Britten and Walton.

There are unusual items and novelties too, two songs by Beethoven (a composer not frequently represented in song recitals), Bizet's Chanson d'Avril, Franck's Le Mariage des roses (when did you last year a song by Cesar Franck?), Sibelius' Demanten på Marssnön, as well as songs by Stanford and Somervell, plus a clutch of lighter items including Liza Lehmann's delightful There are fairies at the bottom of the garden (a song which takes my happily back to my days directing the Pink Singers in the 1980s!), and David Baker's Someone is sending me flowers.

Full details from Wigmore Hall website.