Vocal Chamber concert

Rugby School Music Department present:Vocal Chamber ConcertHugh Mitchell Bass
James Robson TenorRebecca Taylor AccompanistProgramme NotesRalph Vaughan Williamss Songs of Travel (190104), setting poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, traces the counterpoised inner and outer journey of a wandering figure. Textual themes of youthful freedom, solitude, and nostalgia unfold through a musical language shaped by modal harmony and Vaughan Williamss distinct pastoral identity. In particular, the selected songs highlight beauty, belonging, and retrospective pride. The piano part evokes landscape and motion, while the posthumous final song lends a reflective, valedictory close to this meditation on life and travel.Composed in 1840, Liederkreis op. 24 was one of the earliest works in Robert Schumanns famed Liederjahr (Year of Song). Until then, Schumann had devoted himself almost exclusively to solo piano music. In 1839 he confessed, All my life I have regarded vocal music as inferior to instrumental music, and have never considered it great art. Yet the following year he wrote Oh Clara, what bliss it is to write songs, marking the decisive shift in his compositional output. He had been in a prolonged legal battle with Claras father who opposed their marriage and as they prepared for their future together, he recognised the need for a more stable income. Composing songs provided him with a thriving and profitable market and, in many ways, the Liederjahr was both an artistic awakening and financial necessity. Set to nine poems from Heinrich Heines Junge Leiden, the cycle follows a loose narrative of love, longing, and eventual resignation.BiographiesHugh Mitchell is a bass-baritone with a musical foundation in the English choral tradition. A recent graduate of the University of York, he performed Ralph Vaughan Williamss Songs of Travel in its entirety for his dissertation recital, alongside Sarah Cattleys song cycle A Square and Candle-lighted Boat, which was specially composed to accompany Vaughan Williamss work in performance. Hugh has sung with numerous choirs both nationally and internationally and will be continuing to contribute his musical expertise to Rugby School for a further academic year as a Graduate Teaching Assistant.James Robson is a Music Graduate Teaching Assistant at Rugby School, having graduated with First-Class Honours in Music (BA Hons) from the University of York. He began his musical training as a chorister at New College, Oxford under Edward Higginbottom and Robert Quinney, becoming head chorister in his final year. He then received a music scholarship to Abingdon School where he sang in all the school choirs and vocal ensembles. At university, James was a member of The 24 and was twice-awarded the departmental choral scholarship by Robert Hollingworth. He had regular singing lessons with Alexander Ashworth and performed Schumanns Dichterliebe for his undergraduate recital. Outside of university he was a choral scholar at St. Lawrences Church, York under the direction of Jonty Ward and frequently deputised at Selby Abbey, St. Helens Church, York and York Oratory. At the end of this academic year, James will be leaving his post at Rugby School and will be returning to New College, Oxford as a Tenor Lay Clerk and will also be pursuing a career as a freelance musician.Rebecca Taylor read Music as Organ Scholar at Lincoln College, Oxford, studying with David Sanger. As an organist and choral conductor she has broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4, recorded commercially, and performed widely in the UK and abroad in venues including Westminster Abbey, St Georges Chapel Windsor, the Concertgebouw, and St Marks Basilica, Venice. She completed a Masters in Piano Accompaniment at the Royal Academy of Music with Michael Dussek and Carole Presland, later studying with Roger Vignoles and Pascal Nemirovski, and was awarded a distinction in her LRAM diploma. Rebecca won the Maureen Lehane Accompanist Prize at Wigmore Hall and performed in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Song Prize. As a repetiteur she trained on the Solti Accademia under Richard Bonynge and has worked on numerous operas with organisations including English National Opera and the Royal Opera House. She has performed across Europe and the Middle East, and her educational work includes projects with the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in Palestine, the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra School, and vocal outreach programmes in France and at British Schools in Madrid.Running Time: 60 minutesTo keep updated with all Festival on The Close announcements, follow us on our socials:
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