Trunch Concerts 2014 – Music in an historic Norfolk Church

SATURDAY,  30th AUGUST 2014 at  7.30 pm

Genevieve Usher (soprano) & Chris Underhill (piano)

On Saturday, August 30th, we were to have had another recital from Debussy-prize winner, Anda Anastasescu. Unfortunately, Anda is indisposed.

We now have a change of performers and change of programme and welcome heartily Geneviève Usher (soprano) and Chris Underhill (piano). To keep some of Anda’s original programme, Chris will play the Piano Sonata, Op 26, by Beethoven and Schumann’s Faschingsschwank aus Wien, a lively portrait of the waltzes and swagger of the Viennese carnival season. Genevieve will be singing songs for the stage and concert hall by Mozart, Puccini, Gounod, Delibes, Strauss and Edward German. I’m sure thosewho have enjoyed Anda’s playing in previous seasons will join us in wishing Anda every strength in coming to terms with her bereavement. Biographical details of Geneviève and Chris are below.

Concert programme
Geneviève Usher Soprano
Chris Underhill Piano

Widmung                                            Robert Schumann (sung in German)
Zueignung                                          Richard Strauss (sung in German)

Beethoven Sonata Op. 26

Depuis le jour (Louise)                                Gustave Charpentier (sung in French)
Les chemins de l’amour                               Francis Poulenc (sung in French)
Sérénade                                                       Charles Gounod (sung in French)
Les filles de Cadix                                        Léo Delibes (sung in French)

Interval

Ruhe Sanft from Zaide                      Wolfgang Amadeus  Mozart (sung in German)

Faschingsschwank aus Wien Op. 26         Robert Schumann

Musetta’s Waltz Song (La Bohème)           Giacomo Puccini (sung in English)
O mio babbino caro (Gianni Schicchi)       Giacomo Puccini (sung in Italian)
Bessie’s song (Merrie England)                  Edward German (sung in English)

Chris Underhill (Piano)

Chris gained his Trinity College performer’s diploma in piano leaving school. After reading music at King’s College Cambridge, he studied at the Royal College of Music under David Parkhouse.
He has a wide-ranging repertoire, enjoying music of most styles and tastes. His solo work includes various concertos (Saint-Saëns no. 2, Chopin no. 2, Dvorák, Mozart K488), but he enjoys chamber music and accompanying singers and instrumentalists just as much. He has performed in England and abroad both as soloist and accompanist.
His music making benefits from the stable lifestyle he has as an Insurance Underwriter.

Geneviève Usher (Soprano)

Geneviève has sung principal roles in opera, operetta, G & S and oratorio, in addition to concert performances in a wide variety of languages.  A coloratura soprano, her most recent roles have been Olympia in The Tales of Hoffmann, Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute and Micaela in Carmen. Her professional engagements have ranged from weddings and funerals to the soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah for Eton College.
She performed with the composer Adrian Vernon Fish on a month-long concert tour of Greenland by invitation of their Government, performing from Narsaq in southern Greenland to the capital Nuuk and north to Aasiaat in the Arctic Circle.
She is currently studying with Lori Lynn as well as tutors at the Royal College of Music and Guildhall.
Recent engagements have featured a concert in France, The Oxford Lieder Festival, The Oxford and Cambridge Music Club, Portsmouth Cathedral, and numerous charity performances. These included a concert for the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire, raising over £7,500 for his chosen charities, and a charity concert with Tim Brooke-Taylor for “Target Ovarian Cancer”.
Future engagements will be concerts in London, Aylesbury, and Germany, together with a number of charity events.