Category: 2025/26

PROGRAMME

This is just a selection of the songs and music on offer this evening

Henry Purcell – Sound the Trumpet

Duke Ellington – My solitude

Alma Mahler – Laue Sommernacht

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Che sapete

INTERVAL

Edward Elgar – Sea Pictures – II In Haven III A Sabbath Morning at Sea IV Where Corals Lie

Mel Bonis – Songe

Gareth Glyn = Bwydo’r Adar

Jacques Offenbach – Belle nuit, O nuit d’amour from Barcarolle

George Gershwin – The Man I love

Giacomo Rossini – The Cat Duet

BIOGRAPHIES

Alaw Grug Evans soprano

Alaw Grug Evans is a soprano from Carmarthenshire in South-West Wales. A first-class Music graduate from The Queen’s College, Oxford, she is now studying for her Master’s degree postgraduate at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). This year, she is generously supported by the Dobie Award, and was the recipient of the Maurice Pearton Scholarship during her undergraduate studies.

Recent professional highlights include Lucy (The Telephone, Menotti), performed at the British Embassy in Rome, Cupid (King Arthur, Purcell) and soprano soloist (Cantata 150, Bach), both with New Chamber Opera. She is also a named soloist on That Sweet City (album, Choir of The Queen’s College 2024). Her interest in music has always been propelled forward by her Welsh heritage. Contributing to the National Eisteddfod as both a singer and composer, she won the Principal Composer Prize in 2021 and was spotlighted by Classic FM for her work.

An experienced ensemble singer, Alaw has worked with various groups across the UK, including Kantos Chamber Choir, The Delius Singers, and Coro Spezzato. Alaw is delighted to be a member of the RNCM Songsters this year.

Alaw Grug Evans appears by kind permission of the RNCM.

Merel-Magali Cox mezzo soprano

Dutch mezzo-soprano Merel-Magali Cox is studying for a Master’s degree at the RNCM with Mary Plazas, supported by Help Musicians, Het Cultuurfonds, James & Mary Glass Scholarship, Peter Snook and Eva Turner Award. Past roles have included Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro), Linette (L’amour des trois oranges), Solomon (Solomon), Woodpecker (The Cunning Little Vixen) and Idamante (Idomeneo, abridged). An RNCM Songster, she was a finalist in the Frederic Cox Award and won the RNCM Song Cycle Competition. She has performed with ensembles such as The Mancunium Consort, VOCES8 Scholars Ensemble, and Edvard Grieg Korene, with tours coming up through Europe and Colombia.

Merel-Magali Cox appears by kind permission of the RNCM.

Jenny Sykes piano

Jenny Sykes is a pianist from Wiltshire. She has recently completed her Master of Music in Piano Accompaniment at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), with distinction, under the tutelage of Harvey Davies. Since receiving her First-Class Bachelor’s degree in Music from Newcastle University, Jenny has worked as a freelance accompanist and piano teacher. She has also conducted and performed as a clarinettist with the Corsham Wind Band Association.

Jenny enjoys performing both as a soloist and a collaborative pianist. Recent highlights include recitals with RNCM Songsters at Manchester Cathedral and Buxton Opera House, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 20 with Newcastle University Symphony Orchestra and Rhapsody in Blue for solo piano at the King’ Hall, Newcastle University, as well as masterclasses with Julius Drake, Roger Vignoles and David Owen Norris. As part of the Sykes-Zhang duo she was a runner up in the 2026 RNCM Piano Duo Prize, and winner of the Bessie Cronshaw and Frost Brownson Song Cycle prize alongside soprano Bonnie Staude. 

Jenny is delighted to be a member of the RNCM Songsters this year, performing in concert series across Greater Manchester and in Buxton. She has also been involved with the RNCM Children’s Opera and Community Opera, continuing her passion for community engagement and working with aspiring young musicians. 

Jenny Sykes appears by kind permission of the RNCM.

PROGRAMME

Mozart: Sonata in D major, K.311

Clementi: Gradus Ad Parnassian No.7

Toru Takemitzu: Romance

Czerny: Finger of Dexterity, Etude No.28

Debussy: La Cathedrale Engloutie

Beethoven: Sonata Op22 No11 in B flat major

Chopin: Etude – Op10 No12

Debussy: Images Book 1 – Reflets dans l’eau

PROGRAMME

‘Suites and Folk Dances’

The Holberg Suite, Op. 40 by E. Grieg (1843-1907)
I. Praeludium
II. Sarabande
III. Gavotte
IV. Air
V. Rigaudon
Liebeslied ‘Widmung, von Robert Schumann’ S566 by F. Liszt (1811-1866)
Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 3, No. 2 by S. Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Piano Sonata ‘Moonlight’ No. 14 in C-sharp minor by L. van Beethoven (1770-1827)
I. Adagio sostenuto
II. Allegretto
III. Presto agitato
~ INTERVAL ~
Movements from Suite Bergamasque by C. Debussy (1862-1918)
I. Prelude
II. Clair de Lune
III. Menuet
Chanson de Nuit & Chanson de Matin by E. Elgar (1857-1934)
Romanian Folk Dances by B. Bartok (1881-1945)
I. Stick Game
II. Peasant Costume
III. Standing Still
IV. Mountain Horn Song
V. Romanian Polka
VI. Fast Dance
Tango by I. Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Libertango by A. Piazzolla (1921-1992)
A Jazz Suite of Songs by G. Gershwin (1898-1937) arranged by G. Drott (b. 1986)
I. A Foggy Day
II. Embraceable You
III. It Ain’t Necessarily So

Programme

Anna Turner and Ben Attfield

Marcello: Oboe Concerto in D minor

Arnold: Sonatina for oboe and piano

Nielsen: Fantasy Pieces for oboe and piano

Britten: Temporal Variations

Agrell: Blues for DD

Oliver Charles-Lee and Ben Attfield

Gerald Finzi: Five Bagatelles I. Prelude

II. Romance

III. Carol

IV. Forlana

V. Fughetta

Béla Kovács: Hommages Hommage á Falla

Hommage á Strauss

Francis Poulenc: Sonata for Clarinet and Piano

I. Allegro

II. Romanze

III. Allergo con fuoco

André Messager: Solo de concours

PROGRAMME

Lili Boulanger, arr Nathan Holroyd: Nocturne

Ida Gotkovsky: Eolienne

Claude Debussy: ‘La fille aux cheveux de lin’ and ‘En Bateau’

Joseph Bologne: Sonata for Flute and Harp in E-flat major

Jacques Ibert, arr Nathan Holroyd: Intermezzo

Interval

Andy Scott: Sonata for Saxophone and Harp

Jenni Watson: Downpour

Caroline Lizotte: La Madone

Camille Saint-Saëns, arr Jess Hughes: Le cygne

BIOGRAPHIES

Nathan Holroyd and Jess Hughes have been performing together as the Aaben Duo since 2019. Together they have performed their own arrangements of French classics across the North of England, including Beyond the Music festival, International Women’s Day at the Anthony Burgess Foundation, and a series of hospitals performances with Lime Art.

Saxophonist Nathan Holroyd recently received a Graduate Diploma at the Royal Northern College of Music and now works as their Programming Administrator. In 2022, Nathan graduated from the University of Manchester with a First Class Undergraduate Degree in Music as part of the RNCM and University’s Joint Course. Nathan also performs with the UK’s first established reed quintet Northern Reeds.

Harpist Jess Hughes also graduated from the RNCM with a First Class Bachelor of Music (Honours) in 2022, and a one-year intensive Masters in 2023, with Anne-Marie O’Farrell as her principal tutor. Throughout her courses, Jess has performed with many of the RNCM orchestras and ensembles, as well as with the RNCM Harp Ensemble (established by her former tutor Eira Lynn Jones) and her harp duo Tegid Duo. She has also performed as a soloist in venues all over Greater Manchester and her home county of Somerset, including The Pump Rooms in Bath and Glastonbury Abbey.

The Aaben Duo appear by kind permission of the RNCM.

This concert is to celebrate Ravel’s 150th Anniversary and includes music by Faure, Ravel, Vaughan-Williams and Elgar.