The RPS Awards are the biggest prizes in British Classical Music and we were delighted to hear that this year our newly appointed Patron, Louise Alder, won the Singer Award. This award follows a year that has included her appearance at the Last Night of the Proms; an acclaimed Countess at Glyndebourne; her debut at the New York Met and the birth of her second daughter, who joined her at the awards ceremony (pictured above: credit Mark Allan / RPS).
royalphilharmonicsociety.org.uk
Michael Ronan won first prize at the Handel Singing Competition, with Tim Morgan also reaching the final.
This year’s Kathleen Ferrier Competition is underway, six Samling Artists competing in the semi-final – singers Alexandra Achillea, Hector Bloggs, Sebastian Hill, Zheng Jiang, Eyra Norman and pianist Alfred Fardell. You can see them on stage at Wigmore Hall in the semi-final on 21 April with the final taking place on Friday 24 April – we send them all our very best wishes.
Jessica Lawley, Joshua McCullough and Sonny Fielding have all gained places on the 2026/27 National Opera Studio Young Artist Programme. Over the next nine months, they will take part in an intensive programme of coaching in vocal and musical development, language and diction, stagecraft, movement, and career preparation along with a range of performance opportunities.
Three Samling Artist pianists, Alfred Fardell, George Herbert and Daniel Silcock have been selected for this year’s Oxford Song Young Artists programme and will take part in concerts and masterclasses during this year’s festival.
Opera and Concert News
Glyndebourne have announced details of casts for this summer’s Festival and Autumn season. Angelina Dorlin-Barlow and Hector Bloggs have both been selected as Jerwood Young Artists for the season and will receive extensive mentoring as well as singing in the chorus.
In this summer’s Festival, Sam Carl makes his role debut as John Claggart Billy Budd, with a cast including William Thomas as Mr Flint and Michael Ronan as Bosun. In Ariadne auf Naxos, David Butt Philip sings Bacchus and Michael Ronan is Sciarrone Tosca.
In the autumn, Olivia Boen makes her Glyndebourne debut as Countess Le nozze di Figaro with Madeleine Shaw as Marcellina. Madeline Boreham also makes her Glyndebourne debut in Beethoven’s ninth symphony, alongside Stuart Jackson.
At the Grange Festival Zheng Jiang makes his role debut as Sesto Guilio Cesare and Tristan Hambleton is Curio. In La bohème you can see Jamie Woollard and Patrick Dow as Colline and Marcello and in Eugene Onegin Toby Spence is Triquet.
Over at Bayerische Staatsoper Jamie Woollard makes his Munich debut with roles in a new production of Death in Venice and former Opera Studio member Liam Bonthrone returns to sing Don Ramiro La Cenerentola and Male consort I / Lord Darnley in Brett Dean’s Of One Blood. Sam Carl makes another major role debut, this time as Hagen Götterdämmerung with Vladimir Jurowski and appears as Cadmus/Somnus in Semele alongside Louise Alder in the title role. The season also includes Verity Wingate as Wellgunde in Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung and Milan Siljanov as Panas in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Christmas Eve and Dikoj Katya Kabanova.
Derek Welton had a significant jump-in this month, making his La Scala debut as Wotan/Wanderer in Die Walküre and Siegfried.
Catriona Morison makes her house and role debut as Adriano Rienzi at Semperoper Dresden with performances in June and July.
Zheng Jiang makes his Salzburg Festival debut this summer as Grimbald in King Arthur Junior, a work for children adapted from Purcell’s original.
Jennifer France will make her US debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall in February singing the requiems by Ligeti and Mozart with the LA Philharmonic conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen and a soloist line-up that also includes Beth Taylor.
Wigmore Hall Autumn 2026
Wigmore Hall have announced their autumn season, which includes our special 30th anniversary Samling Artist Showcase. Cláudia Ribas makes her Wigmore Hall debut at this concert, with a line-up that includes Nardus Williams, Felix Gygli, Jonathan Ware, Alfred Fardell and some special guests. More news on this concert will follow.
Across the autumn season at Wigmore, you can also see (in order of first appearance) Ema Nikolovska, Alexandra Lowe, James Baillieu, Jâms Coleman, Joseph Middleton, James Newby, Johannes Kammler, Louise Alder, Hugo Brady, Dominic Sedgwick, Benjamin Appl, Nick Pritchard, Toby Spence, Jonathan Ware, Lucy Crowe and Ed Lyon.
Edinburgh Festival
Beth Taylor makes her Edinburgh festival debut in a song recital that includes the premiere of a work commissioned by Beth and pianist Hamish Brown, giving a contemporary perspective on the myth of Medusa.
Louise Alder is Donna Anna and William Thomas is Masetto in a concert performance of Don Giovanni with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Louise is also mentoring the festival’s Rising Stars of Voice programme alongside James Baillieu and they both join the participants in a showcase recital. Nicky Spence is a soloist in Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s The Song of Hiawatha with the Orchestra Symphonique de Montréal and Rafael Payare and Catriona Morison sings Gustav Mahler’s Das klagende Lied with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and Sir Donald Runnicles.
Behind the scenes
As well as those appearing on the stages of the world’s opera houses, Samling Artists are also making an impact behind the scenes in the vitally important jobs of preparing and supporting singers. Jo Ramadan has been playing the organ and conducting the off-stage musicians at Royal Ballet and Opera for Turandot and Peter Grimes; William Vann is chorus master at this year’s Grange Festival and Adam McDonagh has been appointed principal repetiteur for Irish National Opera’s production of Rusalka.
New recordings
Tristan Hambleton and pianist Simon Lepper have created a musical landscape of British songs, called ‘Day of These Days’. The title is taken from a poem by Laurie Lee and the album includes premiere recordings of songs by Sally Beamish, Judith Weir, Huw Watkins and Tarik O’Regan.
delphianrecords.com/products/day-of-these-days
Kitty Whately continues to champion neglected British song repertoire by female composers with her new recital album of songs by Madeleine Dring with pianist Julius Drake. Clive Paget in The Guardian writes ‘Whately’s warm, supple mezzo-soprano takes these frequently fervent outpourings in its stride while spotless diction and an intense connection to text draw the listener into an intoxicating world of rediscovered micro dramas’.
Benjamin Hulett is the soloist with the Choir of Merton College Oxford in the world premiere recording of Cantata di Camera (Crucifixus pro nobis) by Edmund Rubbra.
delphianrecords.com/products/rubbra-choral-music
James Baillieu joins Lise Davidsen for a recital of song and operatic highlights, recorded live from the stage at The Metropolitan Opera.
store.deccaclassics.com/products/live-at-the-met-cd
Other news
Nicky Spence presents a Music Matters series on BBC Radio 3 beginning on Saturday 5 April: ‘Curtain Up: Classical Stories of Musical Theatre’ explores the often overlooked links between opera and musical theatre.
Olivia Warburton is launching a new festival in Lincoln where she was formerly a chorister, bringing together classical, jazz, visual arts and poetry. ‘The Big House’ was her family’s name for the cathedral, and so she has named the project The Big House Arts Festival. Olivia will be on BBC Radio 3 In Tune on Friday 3 April talking about the project.
And finally….. Sarah Chae was a guest on a TV talk show in South Korea, performing and sharing her experiences of Samling. The producers were so interested in hearing about her time with us, that they made a Youtube shorts film from the interview:
