Concert 8: The Life and Loves of Christina Rossetti - Friday 5th December, 7pm
Susan Bullock - soprano
Nigel Foster - piano
Janine Roebuck - speaker

A tribute to the English poet Christina Rossetti, on her 195th birthday. This programme, devised by Nigel Foster, includes settings of Christina Rossetti’s poetry by well-loved composers of English Song, including Vaughan Williams, Parry and Michael Head, plus settings by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Arthur Somervell, Frederick Cowen, Juliana Hall, Charles Wood, Thomas Dunhill, Liza Lehmann and others. The programme also includes a song by J Scott Irvine, written for Susan Bullock. These songs will be combined with readings from Christina Rossetti’s letters and other sources to give a very human portrait of this fascinating character.

Susan Bullock’s career began with winning the Kathleen Ferrier Award, and has since sung in all the major opera houses of the world: La Scala, the Met, Covent Garden, Berlin Staatsoper, Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, Sydney Opera House, singing roles such as Brunnhilde, Klytämnestra (Elektra) and Salome, and she is equally at home on the recital platform. She was the soprano soloist at the Last Night of the Proms in 2011, and, as Britannia, she sang Always look on the bright side of life with Eric Idle during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London.
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.