THE PHOENIX SINGERS

We are very grateful to Lord and Lady Cameron for hosting this event to support Concerts in the West.

Our patron and international Handel specialist, conductor and harpsichordist, LAURENCE CUMMINGS, is joined by award-winning soprano, RUBY HUGHES.

A programme of delightful arias composed by Handel and his contemporaries for the Italian singer, Giulia Frasi. Ruby Hughes feels a particular affinity with her eighteenth-century comrade as Ruby’s favourite Handel roles are the ones he composed for Frasi. Together with Laurence Cummings, Ruby is embarking on an exciting recording project of these beautiful, lyrical and exciting arias.

4PM CONCERT in St Mary’s Church
6PM RECEPTION in the Whitelackington Manor Barn

REVIEW

RUBY HUGHES began her musical studies as a cellist graduating from the Guildhall School of Music in London. She went on to study voice at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Munich and was awarded a Royal Philharmonic Society Susan Chilcott award to support her post graduate studies there. She gained a full scholarship to study with Lillian Watson at the Royal College of Music, London, graduating in July 2009.

Holder of a 2014 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, Shortlisted for a 2014 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award, Winner of both First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2009 London Handel Singing Competition and a BBC New Generation Artist for 2011/2013, Ruby Hughes is the daughter of the celebrated Welsh ceramicist Elizabeth Fritsch.LAURENCE CUMMINGS is one of Britain’s most exciting and versatile exponents of historical performance both as conductor and harpsichord player. He has been Artistic Director of the London Handel Festival since 1999 and of the Internationale Händel-Festpiele Göttingen since 2012, as well as acting as Music Director for Orquestra Barroca Casa da Musica Porto and as a trustee of Handel House London. He is the William Crotch Professor of Historical Performance at the Royal Academy of Music.

He has conducted productions for English National Opera, Opera North, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Gothenburg Opera, Opernhaus Zurich, Opera de Lyon, Garsington Opera, English Touring Opera and at the Linbury Theatre Covent Garden. He regularly conducts the English Concert and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and has worked with the Hallé, Bournemouth Symphony, Britten Sinfonia, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Ulster Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Handel and Haydn Society (Boston), St Paul Chamber Orchestra (Minnesota), Wiener Akademie, Musikcollegium Winterthur, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony and Basel Chamber Orchestra.