March certainly snuck up on us all rather fast, and with that came the highlight of my 2016 so far - Out at Sea. From being invited onboard (excuse the pun) by composer, Blanka Stachelek, in July to starting rehearsals in November, this has been a huge opportunity to not just stretch my legs as a contemporary performer, but also experience performing an opera with an extremely small cast, in the round.                          
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In the middle of all that, Via Nova spent the weekend working on music by Howard Skempton and a new work by Percy Pursglove with non-professional singers and instrumentalists. This was in preparation for the Contemporary Music for All Festival concert with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Via Nova. What a great concert and my first solo venture at the CBSO centre!

Then straight into the final few days of rehearsals for the Conservatoire Triple Bill, where I played the China Teacup in Ravel's L'Enfant et les sortileges. Going from an overweight, cannibalistic man to a dainty 10yr old in a teacup in less than a week was certainly a shock to the senses! Sadly this was my last Conservatoire opera (I think!) but it's been an incredible five years working with Michael Barry as director, and Fraser Goulding as my musical director for three years!

A huge thank you to everyone in all the backstage teams involved in both projects: Wardrobe, lighting, makeup, even getting us on stage sometimes is a pain!
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An exciting week is ahead: a brilliant concert of John Joubert with Chamber choir and plenty from Via Nova and Frontiers Festival  2016! I am also incredibly lucky to be having a piece of music written for me by the absolutely brilliant Patrick Giguére (you can hear his other works HERE) ready for performance in April.

The past three months have been some of the most hectic and significant in my career so far! 
After a lovely 'Concert for Peace' in Grassington with Graham Coatman, and a short week of rest at Easter I dove straight in to my final(!!!) semester as an undergraduate at the Conservatoire. First, a baroque double bill: John Blow's 'Venus and Adonis' and Marc-Antoinne Charpentier's 'Actéon'. I was cast in the role of the nymph, Hyale in Actéon and in a little over three weeks we produced a show we were all really proud of. It was an absolute joy to work with a baroque orchestra for the first time, and the beautiful dresses we were put in were definitely a plus! 

In the middle of all this I also gave my Bachelor of Music Final Recital, which had a broad range of repertoire including Orlandini, Poulenc, Bizet and Weir. I will be uploading some recordings from this concert on the media page, along with some highlights from 'the little match girl passion' performance I directed and performed in as part of the Frontier's Festival in February - so keep your eyes peeled! 

I then headed back up to my hometown of Harrogate to rejoin St Peter's church choir, of which I have been a part of  for 16 years, to celebrate the retirement of our vicar, Tony Shepherd. It has been an absolute honour to be part of that choir for so long, but also to return for such a significant event also meant that I saw many people I haven't seen for so many years, including the composer Philip Wilby and his wife, Wendy. Philip was choirmaster when I joined the choir as an overly energetic (and distracted) seven year old, and gave me my first ever choral solo, so reuniting with them was a huge highlight to what was an amazing weekend of choral celebrations.

On my return to Birmingham, we began the new Conservatoire Chamber Choir recording of Vaughan Williams, Holst and Howells disc for Somm Records, which is due to be released next year! 

As mentioned, there will be some new media uploaded to the website shortly, as well as some pretty exciting news to be announced within the next few months! But here is some candid/backstage photos of my recent adventures!

Finally, at the end of a very busy month, the new website is live! 

For the past two weeks, venues around Birmingham have been buzzing  with world premières, collaborations, and innovations from the students and staff of Birmingham Conservatoire, as well as special guests and international stars.  
 I was lucky enough to be involved in two of the concerts: a world première of 'Silence', for voice and chamber ensemble by Yfat Soul Zisso, in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery as part of the 'Vocal Marathon' day, as well as my own production of David Lang's 'the little match girl passion'.
This year's Frontiers focused on the use of technology in music, especially how the boundaries of electronic and acoustic music can intersect. It has been a such a joy and inspiration to see the results of exploration into experimental music, and certainly got a few of us talking about future projects!

You can read the full overview of the festival here!