Antipodeans in London: four alumni of Covent Garden's Jette Parker programme in recital from Australia House

Four alumni of Covent Garden's Jette Parker Young Artists Programme are coming together for a recital from Australia House in London, to be broadcast on the Melbourne Digital Concert Hall website on 4 August 2020, with the support of the Tait Memorial Trust. Sopranos Kiandra Howarth and Lauren Fagan, tenors Samuel Sakker and Filipe Manu (three Australians and a New Zealander of Tongan descent) will be accompanied by pianist Sergei Rybin in a programme of songs by Debussy, Strauss, Rachmaninov, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Bellini, Poulenc and Respighi.

Kiandra Howarth won the second Grange Festival International Singing competition in 2019 [see my article], and you can also catch her in Respighi with Sergei Rybin recorded in the Crush Room at Covent Garden [Facebook]. Tenor, Samuel Sakker took second prize in the inaugural Grange Festival competition in 2017 [see my article] and he was Federico in Opera Holland Park's 2019 production of Cilea's L'Arlesiana [see my review]. Lauren Fagan was a great hit in the title role of Verdi's La traviata at Opera Holland Park in 2018 [see my review], and we saw Filipe Manu as Ramiro in Rossini's La Cenerentola at West Green Opera last year [see my review]. Sergei Rybin's work as a pianist includes a lovely disc of Rimsky Korsakov's neglected Romances with Anush Hovhannisyan and Yuri Yurchuk [see my review].

Their recital is being broadcast on Melbourne Digital Concert Hall on 4 August 2020 at 8.30pm AEST (which I think is 11.30am UK time), further details from the website.