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Spring Concert 2010

From the programme notes:

Songs of the Fleet by Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)

Soloist: Andrew Rupp (Baritone)

Stanford is remembered today for his church music and a small number of choral works such as Songs of the Fleet, but he was one of the leading composers of his generation. He taught composition at the Royal College of Music, where Vaughan Williams was a pupil of his, and in 1887 became Professor of Music at Cambridge. Songs of the Fleet was composed in 1910 to texts by Sir Henry Newbolt and is very much in the Edwardian style of its time, naive and jingoistic; a period piece but none the worse for that.

A Sea Symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Soloists: Penelope Martin Smith (soprano) and Andrew Rupp (baritone)

Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony was first performed at the Leeds Festival in 1910. It was the first of the composer's nine symphonies and takes the form of an extended choral work. The words are by the American poet Walt Whitman which the composer chose for their metaphysical and humanistic content. The absence of a narrative line enables the composer to construct a four-movement work on symphonic principles.

Penelope Martin-Smith - Soprano

Penelope Martin-Smith read Music and German at University of London Goldsmiths' College and following that gained a diploma in singing performance at the Guildhall School of Music.

Penelope's operatic roles are diverse - The Queen of the Night and Pamina in Mozart's 'Magic Flute', Fiordiligi in 'Cosi fan tutte,' the Countess in 'Le nozze di Figaro', Elisabetta in Donizetti's 'Maria Stuarda', Zerbinetta in Strauss' 'Ariadne auf Naxos' and Ellen Orford in Benjamin Britten's 'Peter Grimes' are among them. She is particularly known as a coloratura soprano and has performed several of the virtuosic concert arias by Mozart including 'Popoli di Tessaglia' with its top G's in alt. One week after this concert Penelope will direct 'The Marriage of Figaro' by Mozart in the Deanery garden, Canterbury as well as taking the role of the Countess.

Penelope is vocal director and principal soprano soloist for the pioneering group Schola Pietatis Antonio Vivaldi which aims to reproduce the performance practices of Vivaldi's all-female choir and orchestra of the Pieta in Venice. The group filmed in Venice in 2005 an award-winning drama documentary and a performance in period costume of the 'Gloria' both of which were screened several times in 2006 on BBC 4. Several concerts are scheduled this summer in the UK and a US tour.

In 2007 she released an album with her son, who is a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, entitled 'Devotion'. In 1999 Penelope recorded 2 solo CDs of American songs of the '20s and '30s for Classical Communications (distributed through Past Times and English Heritage).

Penelope teaches singing at The King's School Canterbury and St.Edmund's School Canterbury, is an approved teacher for Durham University and is Associate Director and Vocal coach for the renowned Oxford Girls' Choir.

Andrew Rupp - Baritone

Andrew was born in Canterbury and started singing there as a Cathedral Chorister whilst attending St Edmund's School. He was subsequently a choral scholar at St John's College, Cambridge where he also studied Natural Sciences.

In 1996 Andrew gave up a career in the City and made his operatic debut as The Vicar in Britten's 'Albert Herring' for British Youth Opera and also joined the Glyndebourne chorus. Since then he has sung roles at Glyndebourne, Berlin Staatsoper, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Lausanne, Caen, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Paris, and Vienna, Aldeburgh and Cardiff.

He has a wide concert and oratorio repertoire and has performed in the UK, USA, Japan, France, Switzerland, Italy and Scandinavia. Recent concert appearances include 'The Dream of Gerontius' in Canterbury and 'Five Mystical Songs' in Wells, London, Canterbury, Marlborough and Malvern along with Handel's 'Acis and Galatea' and Britten's 'Praise we great men' for the Aldeburgh Festival. He was a soloist in the première of Tavener's 'The Veil of the Temple' and in its revivals in New York, the Royal Albert Hall, Amsterdam and Brighton. He also premièred Tavener's 'Hymn of Dawn' at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast. He recently performed 'A Sea Symphony' at both the Royal Festival Hall with the RPO and the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, the work's Chinese debut.

Recent engagements include the roles of Sharpless in Raymond Gubbay's production of 'Madam Butterfly' at the Royal Albert Hall and Jean in Boesmann's 'Miss Julie', including performances at The Royal Opera House's Linbury Theatre.

Last season he made his debut for Opera North as Balstrode in their acclaimed production of 'Peter Grimes' and performed John in Birtwistle's 'The Last Supper' in Milan and Turin. Earlier this year he appeared as Dancairo in 'Carmen' at the Royal Albert Hall, performed Purcell's 'Boudica' with the OAE at King's Place in London and English National Opera's recent production of 'Peter Grimes'. He is currently understudying the role of Ping in their new production of 'Turandot' which opened at the Coliseum in October. He will also be performing Haydn's 'Creation' with Manchester Camerata and as the soloist in 'The Winter Journey' with the BBC Symphony Orchestra before the end of the year.

Andrew is a member of the BBC Singers.