Your Tutors
Stephen Brown - Chorus Director
Stephen
studied at Trinity College, London and then at the Benjamin Britten
International Opera School at the Royal College of Music. His career has led
to roles with companies such as Glyndebourne, Opera Della Luna, English
Touring Opera, Carl Rosa Opera and D'Oyly Carte Opera
Company.
Stephen’s
roles include
Tanzmeister
and Brighella Ariadne auf
Naxos,
Eisenstein Die Fledermaus
for Carl Rosa Opera and Spoletta
Tosca for Dublin Lyric Opera.
For Glyndebourne he has sung
Pedro in Prokofiev’s Betrothal in a Monastery,
Peter
Quint The Turn of the Screw and
Lysander A Midsummer Night’s
Dream and roles in Carmen and Eugene Onegin.
Other highlights
include character tenor roles in
Between Worlds for English National Opera,
Dick
Guglielmo Ratcliff at Wexford
International Festival and Tenor
Gabriel with Alison Balsom and
Trevor Pinnock at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
Stephen
has sung gala concerts for Raymond Gubbay at The Bridgewater Hall
Manchester, Symphony Hall Birmingham and the Barbican London as well as with
the RTE Concert Orchestra in Dublin. He regularly sings Bach’s Evangelists
and Elgar’s Gerontius.
Highlights include Verdi’s Requiem
at London’s Barbican,
Matthäus Passion
(arias) with Peter Schreier in London and in
Iceland and international engagements in Romania, Norway, Jerusalem, Spain
and Germany.
Stephen is also the artistic director of both Kentish
Opera and Opera in Oborne, the Allegri Singers and the Sussex Chorus.
He is also the artistic director of the Rosenau Sinfonia, a
professional orchestra based in London, with whom he recently conducted the
whole ‘Ring Cycle’ of Wagner.
David Edwards - Stage Director
DAVID EDWARDS is a freelance director, writer and presenter. He was born in London and graduated in Classics from Cambridge University. David has directed opera around the world in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Portland, Houston, Minneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, London (including ten revivals for The Royal Opera), Milan, Vienna, Singapore and regularly in Tokyo at the New National Theatre where he has taught on the Young Artists' programme for over a decade.
His original scripts have been performed in London and Aldeburgh (Wagner & Berlioz, Verdi in Venice, Wagner, Britten & the Sea, From Bayreuth to Busseto, Verdi's Singers on record, Wagner in Exile) and at the Chicago Humanities Festival (Opera at the Movies, Exiled In America).
He is Production Director for The Mastersingers, staging excerpts from DER RING and DIE MEISTERSINGER with emerging Wagner singers, and for many years was a regular tutor at the Motley Theatre Design Course in London. Future projects include BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE with the Philharmonia, FIDELIO in Singapore, and CURLEW RIVER in Japan and the U.K.
Website: davidedwardsopera.com
Jennifer Carter was born in Bristol in 1985. She studied first at
Colston's Girls' School, where she was awarded the Merchant Venturer's
Vocational Scholarship. She then won a full scholarship to the Junior
Department of the Royal Welsh College of Music, where Jennifer received
the Elgar Recital Prize, concurrently receiving a scholarship to study at
the Guildhall School
of Music and Drama.
At the age of 17,
Jennifer was asked to accompany Robin Bowman's classes at the Académie
Internationale d'Eté de Nice, and has now played for his teaching both in
and outside Guildhall. Jennifer was then awarded a further
postgraduate scholarship to specialise her studies in accompaniment with
Robin Bowman, Paul Roberts, Caroline Palmer, and Eugene Asti at the
Guildhall, gaining a
distinction.
Jennifer has played in
masterclasses with Chris Elton, Andrew Ball, Michael Dussek, Martin
Roscoe, and Ruth Harte and appeared on BBC Wales aged 16 playing in a
masterclass with Richard MacMahon.
Jennifer has enjoyed playing in the
Edinburgh Festival, LSO St Luke's as part of the LSO
Discovery series,
the Colston Hall in Bristol, the Barbican Centre
as part of the
Barbican Lates series, St James Piccadilly, St John's Smith Square, St
Martin-in-the-Fields, the Royal Albert Hall and Kings Place and has also
toured Norway and Germany with her piano trios.
She won the Queen
Mary II accompanist prize at the Guildhall, and has now been made an
accompanist for the Guildhall School of Music, the Royal College of Music
and the Junior and Senior Department of the Royal Academy of Music. She
was awarded scholarships for her postgraduate study from the Stationers'
Company, and the Lawrence Atwell Trust.
She has also performed Britten
in LSO St Luke's with the Apollo Chamber Orchestra, and premiered the
Carter piece at the Barbican
Pit Theatre devised for her by the
composer Michael Picknett in 2012, with a repeat performance in 2013.
Jennifer was a Junior Fellow in Accompaniment at the Royal College
of Music, and was the first person to be awarded a further extension of
this fellowship for an unprecedented third year. She has now been made a
Concordia Artist.
Jennifer was also awarded the Leonard Hancock Bursary
for her work at the RCM, and was also selected to perform in Iain
Burnside's new work 'Journeying Boys' at the Britten Theatre. Jennifer
performed recently at the Fidenza Opera House, the Royal Opera House, the
Oriental Club, the National Gallery and Lady Solti's house.
Upcoming concerts include performing in Lyon and touring the UK with
cellist Mikhail Lezdkan.
Website: jennifercarterpiano.com
friendsinconcert.co.uk