Helen Charlston and Alessandro Fisher

English art song saw a rich renaissance in the early years of the 20th century, continuing between the wars.

This programme draws on a treasury of the finest songs of Vaughan Williams, Ivor Gurney, Rebecca Clarke, Samuel Coleridge Taylor and Benjamin Britten, alongside works by Brahms and Schubert.

Helen Charlston Mezzo soprano
Alessandro Fisher Tenor
Sholto Kynoch Piano

Programme

Ireland Sea Fever
Ireland Full Fathom Five

Vaughan Williams Think of me
Schubert Vier Canzonen D688
Vaughan Williams Adieu
Brahms  Fünf Lieder op 105

Vaughan Williams It was a lover and his lass
Dunhill The Cloths of Heaven
Clarke The Salley Gardens
Britten How sweet the answer
Britten The Salley Gardens

Gurney Sleep
Elwyn Edwards The Cloths of Heaven
Coleridge Taylor Oh, the summer

Helen Charlston

Winner of the 2023 BBC Music Magazine Vocal Awards, she won first prize in the 2018 International Handel Singing Competition and was a finalist in the 2019 Grange Festival International Singing Competition, won the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize in the 2021 Kathleen Ferrier Awards and is a BBC New Generation Artist. Helen was a founder participant of the Rising Star of the Enlightenment programme, working alongside the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; a member of Les Arts Florissants Young Artist Programme (Jardin des Voix) for 2021/22; and is a 2018 City Music Foundation Artist.

Alessandro Fisher

Holder of a 2022 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, Selected by Gramophone as “One To Watch”, Winner of First Prize at the 2016 Kathleen Ferrier Awards and an Associate Artist of The Mozartists, Alessandro Fisher was a member of the BBC New Generation Artist Scheme between 2018 and 2021.

Sholto Kynach

Sholto Kynoch is a sought-after pianist who specialises in song and chamber music. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the Oxford Lieder Festival, which won a prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award in 2015, cited for its ‘breadth, depth and audacity’ of programming. In July 2018, Sholto was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in the RAM Honours.