Select Page

Karina Lucas & Simon Lane

Wednesday 7th November 2012, 7:30pm

Tonight’s recital is a tribute to Kathleen Ferrier to mark the centenary of her birth.

Karina Lucas is of Spanish and English parentage. She studied at the National Opera Studio, where her studies were supported by the Peter Moores Foundation and Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Previously, she trained at the Royal Northern College of Music where she graduated with a First Class Honours Degree and Distinction for her Post Graduate Diploma.

She has performed in three of Jonathan Dove Opera’s: the role of Flora (The Enchanted Pig) at the Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House and at the New Victory Theatre, 42nd Street, New York; the title role (The Adventures of Pinocchio) for Opera North and Sara (Tobias and the Angel) for the Young Vic/Opera Group of which a disc has recently been released on Chandos. Other roles include Third Lady (Die Zauberflöte) for Opera North; Witch (Macbeth) for Scottish Opera Go Round; Dorabella (Cosi fan tutte), Leila (Iolanthe), Maddalena (Rigoletto), Wowkle (La Fanciulla del West), Smeraldina (The Love of Three Oranges) and Nymph (Rusalka) for Grange Park Opera; Dorabella for the Ryedale Festival and  Sesto (Giulio Cesare) for the Yorke Trust. She returned to Grange Park Opera last summer to perform the Kitchen Boy in Dvořák’s Rusalka.

As a Park Lane Group Young Artist, Karina made her debut at the Purcell Room in January 2007 with duo partner Simon Lane, since when she has given recitals at the Brighton Festival, Leeds Lieder Festival, Ripon Cathedral, St. John’s Smith Square, St. James’s Piccadilly, Oundle International Festival and been invited to perform at the Wigmore Hall. Karina and Simon were amongst the small selection of artists chosen and recommended by Making Music in the Concert Promoters Network Brochure 2009-2010. They released their first disc ‘From the Old World to the New’, in collaboration with violist Rebecca Jones, at the end of 2011 on the Sonimage label.

Other concert performances include works by Nicola Le Fanu, Judith Weir and Anthony Powers with the contemporary music group Okeanos (Gloucester Three Choirs Festival, Bmic The Cutting edge, Guildhall and Cardiff University); Young Artist recitals (Aix-en-Provence Summer Festival); Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music (Wigmore Hall); Berkeley’s Four Poems by St Teresa of Avila (Lake District Summer Music); Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer (Stockport Symphony Orchestra) and Elgar’s Sea Pictures (Bath Philharmonia).

To hear Karina, accompanied by Simon, sing Vaughan Williams’ Silent Noon,  (which they are to perform for us) click here where you will also find another song by the duo – ‘Tres Morillas’  and two songs from Tobias and the Angel.

Simon Lane leads a diverse musical life, performing with both instrumentalists and singers, and his performing has taken him across the UK as well as Ireland, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Denmark and North America. Simon is a resident artist and tutor at Aberystwyth International Festival and Summer School.

Most recently he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Michael Dussek and Julius Drake, and was awarded the Helen Eames Prize on graduation. Prior to this he studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester with Mark Ray and Dina Parakhina. In his early life he was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral.

Simon was the recipient of the Accompanists’ Prize in the 2009 Royal Overseas League Music Competition, and has received many other awards including the Sir Henry Richardson Scholarship administered by the MBF, a Countess of Munster Education Award, and both the Elena Gerhardt Lieder Prize and the Brenda Webb Award at the Royal Academy of Music. Together with regular duo partners Simon has been selected for the Worshipful Company of Musicians’ ‘Maisie Lewis Award’, the Park Lane Group New Year Series at the Purcell Room, the Tillett Trust Young Artists’ Platform on three separate occasions and a Tunnell Trust Award. Simon and cellist Philip Higham have also been awarded a Kirckman Concerts Society Award which will see them perform at London’s Wigmore Hall in December 2011.

Recent venues include St. George’s Bristol, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, Wigmore Hall and the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, and he has collaborated with artists such as Guy Johnston, Allan Clayton, Iestyn Davies and the Navarra String Quartet. Festival appearances include the Bachfest Leipzig, Lago Maggiore, Le Festival de Musique de Menton, King’s Lynn, Newbury, Brighton, Leeds Lieder, Ryedale, Lichfield, Deal and Lake District Summer Music Festivals. As well as being in great demand as a chamber musician, he has in recent seasons performed concerti by Schumann, Beethoven and Grieg as well as Beethoven’s ‘Triple’ Concerto.

Programme

Traditional ~ Blow the Wind Southerly

Herbert Hughes ~ Down by the Salley Gardens  &  I Know Where I’m Going

Roger Quilter ~ Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes

Vaughan Williams ~ Silent Noon

Benjamin Britten ~ O Waly Waly

Schumann ~ Frauenliebe und Leben, Op.40

Schubert ~ Selection of Songs

Mahler ~ Ruckert Lieder