DAME KIRI TE KANAWA, JOHN RUTTER & ROLANDO VILLAZON
TO PERFORM AT THE CLASSICAL BRIT AWARDS 2006 WITH NS&I
UK record companies trade association the BPI is delighted to confirm that one of the most famous sopranos of the past century Dame Kiri Te Kanawa will perform at The Classical BRIT Awards 2006 with National Savings and Investments (NS&I). In addition to this announcement, leading Mexican lyric tenor Rolando Villazon and composer, conductor and choral visionary, John Rutter have also been confirmed to perform.
The highly anticipated gala event takes place at the Royal Albert Hall on Thursday 4 May 2006 and will be hosted for the first time by Michael Parkinson. Already confirmed to perform are Placido Domingo, considered by some as the greatest operatic artist of modern times, and the natural and modern trumpeter Alison Balsom who recently signed to EMI Classics and will release a new album of popular works for trumpet in September this year. The Classical BRIT Awards with NS&I will be broadcast on Sunday 7 May on ITV1.
The nominations for The Classical BRIT Awards 2006 with NS&I will be unveiled on Monday 10 April at The Royal Garden Hotel. The categories will include NS&I’s Album of the Year, Young British Classical Performer and two new awards for 2006, Instrumentalist of the Year and Singer of the Year. At the launch event there will be three exclusive performances from Alison Balsom, newly signed Scottish tenor Nicky Spence and Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo who last week shot into the Top 10 of the UK commercial pop album charts.
2006 marks the debut appearances for all the artists at The Classical BRIT Awards with National Savings & Investments.
In the genre of opera, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is a familiar figure in the leading opera houses of the world. Her operatic repertoire includes major heroines of the Austro-German school; Mozart's Countess (Le Nozze di Figaro), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Pamina (Die Zauberflote) and Fiordiligi (Cosi fan tutte), Richard Strauss' Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier), Countess (Capriccio) and the title role in Arabella in addition to Italian roles such as Mimi (Puccini's La Boheme), Violetta (Verdi's La Traviata) and Elizabeth (Verdi's Don Carlos) and the French roles of Marguerite (Gounod's Faust) and Micaela (Bizet's Carmen).
On the concert stage, her natural serenity and vocal beauty have joined with the world's major orchestral ensembles - London Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony under the baton of such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa and Sir Georg Solti.
John Rutter is referred to as one of the heroes of 20th Century British classical music. Choirs up and down the land would be impoverished without his work. Born in London in 1945, Rutter received his early musical education as a chorister at Highgate School. He went on to study music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he wrote his first published compositions and conducted his first recording while still a student.
From 1975 to 1979 he was Director of Music at Clare College, whose choir he directed in a number of broadcasts and recordings. He has guest-conducted or lectured at many concert halls, universities, churches, music festivals, and conferences in Europe, Scandinavia, North America and Australasia. In 1980, he was made an Honorary Fellow of Westminster Choir College, Princeton, and in 1988 a Fellow of the Guild of Church Musicians. In 1996, the Archbishop of Canterbury conferred a Lambeth Doctorate of Music upon him in recognition of his contribution to church music.
Internationally recognized as one of the leading lyric tenors of our day, Rolando Villazon has been acclaimed for performances at leading theatres across the world. Rolando Villazon won the second prize in Placido Domingo’s 1999 Operalia competition as well as the first prize for Zarzuela and the Prize of the Public. In the same year he made his European debut as Des Grieux in Manon in Genoa. In February 2003 he received the French honour Les Victories de la Musique in the category “Foreign Discovery Of The Year”.
He made his debut in 2003 at the Metropolitan Opera as Alfredo opposite Renee Fleming and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in his first performances of the title role of 'Les Contes d’Hoffmann'. In June of 2004 he sang his first Don Carlos at the Netherlands Opera and then starred at the Aix-en Provence Festival in La Traviata. In September of 2004 Rolando Villazón made his San Francisco Opera debut, also in 'La Traviata' and in October, the tenor gave his successful first US recital at the Metropolitan Museum of Art concert series in the Temple of Dendur.
David Jensen Photography:
https://www.davidjensen.co.uk/
