Following our successful spring performance of classic music, we are delighted to welcome outstanding sopranos working in the North Easton England – Katherine Hambridge and Sophie Horrocks. They are both engaged in research at Durham university, but are also very experienced solo singers, and will present a delightful programme of solos and duets. Sophie and Katherine will be accompanied by David Murray on piano.
“Songs from the Salon” transports you back to the elegant and artistic gatherings of 19th-century French and German society. The salon—as a private gathering, generally held in people’s homes—was not only a space in which women could exercise cultural and intellectual leadership without compromising their ‘respectability’, but the site of female creativity: many women composers wrote in genres that would be performed at salons, especially vocal genres.
This concert recovers the music (and stories) of some of these fascinating women: Jeanette Bürde, Josephine Lang, Johanna Kinkel, Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann, Pauline Viardot, Maria Malibran and Cecile Chaminade.
Sophie Horrocks is a French-British mezzo soprano from Edinburgh.
Sophie currently performs small ensembles in Scotland, England and France, while also maintaining a career as an education practitioner collaborating in academic research and outreach projects. She studied music at the University of Cambridge, followed by a Master’s at King’s College, London and more recently, a PhD in musicology at Durham University.
Katherine Hambridge is an Associate Professor in Musicology at Durham University.
Formerly an organ scholar at Worcester Cathedral and Girton College, Cambridge, Katherine trained and performed as an organist, choral conductor and singer for many years, ultimately focusing on conducting and singing. Since arriving in the North East, Katherine has conducted the Durham University Choral Society, Northern Spirit Singers and examines conducting for the Music Department. For her day job, she works as an Associate Professor of Music History at Durham University, specialising in German and French musical culture and thought in the nineteenth century. As a singer, she specialises in early music and German song.
David Murray, from Whitley Bay, and his wife Jennifer, have been involved with the Old Low Light Heritage Centre for the past few years.
David and Jennifer are renowned, professional musicians and teachers who are passionate about providing opportunities for local people to hear top class classic music in their local community.
David Murray is recognised as one of the North East’s most acclaimed pianists, and is in constant demand as a soloist, accompanist and chamber music partner. He has accompanied top musiciansin recitals all over the world.
He is also well known as a choral trainer and conductor and is permanent conductor of Bishopwearmouth Choral Society and Hexham Abbey Festival Chorus.