Concert 1: The Boulanger Sisters - Friday 17th October 7pm
Katie Bray - mezzo-soprano
Guy Cutting - tenor
Nigel Foster - piano

The Boulanger sisters, Nadia and Lili, were both pioneers; Lili was the first women to win the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1913, and Nadia was the first woman to conduct many major orchestras, including the BBC Symphony, the Hallé, the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony. Both sisters’ composing careers were short-lived; Lili died of tuberculosis in 1918, aged just 24, and Nadia stopped composing in 1922 to concentrate on her teaching career (her students included Aaron Copland, Lennox Berkeley, Elliott Carter and Philip Glass), but in the first two decades of the 20th century they wrote many extraordinarily beautiful songs. This programme includes extracts from their song-cycles, Les Heures Claires (Nadia) and Clairières dans le Ciel (Lili), together with many other gems of Song.

Katie Bray won the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at Cardiff Singer of the World, and has since sung leading roles for English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera and Opera Holland Park. She has sung with orchestras including London Philharmonic, Hallé, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Britten Sinfonia and Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, and in recital for the Oxford International Song, Glenarm, and Ryedale Festivals.
Guy Cutting has sung at La Scala Milan, the BBC Proms, The Philharmonie Berlin, Tonhalle Zurich, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and in recital all over Europe.
Nigel Foster has performed at Wigmore Hall, the South Bank Centre, Barbican Centre, Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Crush Bar) and across Europe as well as in North and South America, Japan, Malaysia and New Zealand, playing for singers including Roderick Williams, Dame Sarah Connolly, Nicky Spence, Nadine Benjamin, Kate Royal, Lotte Betts-Dean, James Gilchrist, Julien Van Mellaerts, Ashley Riches, Simon Wallfisch, Louise Winter, and Elizabeth Llewellyn.