With support from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust

Katie Bray is a Karaviotis scholar on the opera course at the Royal Academy of Music, taught by Elizabeth Ritchie and Iain Ledingham, and was recently awarded First Prize in the Academy's prestigious Richard Lewis singing competition. She performed the role of Polly Peachum in Royal Academy Opera's production of Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper. During her time as a postgraduate student at the Royal Academy of Music, Katie was awarded the 2009 Major van Someren-Godfrey Prize for English Song, the 2010 Elena Gerhardt Lieder Prize, the Alfred Alexander Scholarship and the Karaviotis and Sir Thomas Armstrong Awards. She was also the recipient of the Opera Prize and third prize overall in the 2011 Mozart International Singing Competition. Recent solo appearances include Wu in the world première of Peter Maxwell-Davies' opera, Kommilitonen!, a lunchtime recital in the 2011 London Handel Festival, and a Gershwin recital with Tom Poster.

William Vann is establishing himself at the forefront of the current generation of young British accompanists. He gained a choral scholarship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and then studied as a pianist at the Royal Academy of Music with Malcolm Martineau and Colin Stone, graduating with distinction; in 2008 he won the Gerald Moore award for young accompanists and in October 2010 won the Great Elm Awards Accompanist Prize. He is also a past winner of the Sir Henry Richardson Scholarship, is supported by the Geoffrey Parsons Memorial Trust, was the Hodgson Fellow in piano accompaniment at the RAM for the academic year 2009-10.

Programme

Songs, arias and piano solos by Mozart, Schumann, Gounod, Bizet, Sieber, Weill, Gershwin, Lutyens and Arlen