Messiah
7:00pm, Sat, 3 Dec 2022
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- Event Details
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Type of event: Performance Start time: 7:00pm Venue: Saint Peters Church, Burnley Description: 
Handel's Messiah
Burnley Municipal Choir
East Lancs Sinfonia
Conductor - Nigel Wilkinson
Soloists
Grace O’Malley – Soprano
Local girl Grace, is a graduate of The Royal College of Music, where she was a Derek Butler scholar and recipient of the James Toland Vocal Arts Director Award. She studied with baritone Peter Savidge. She has just started her Artist Diploma in Vocal Training at Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Soprano Yvonne Kenny.
Grace started singing lessons at the very young age of six, she attended Chetham’s School of Music as a Manchester Cathedral chorister at eight, left at ten and went on to study at the Junior Royal Northern College of Music for eight years with Linda Richardson. In 2012 she was the gold medal winner at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod and was awarded the Helen Latto Award for Singing and the Rotary award for Performance at The Junior Royal Northern College of Music.
As a young artist she has performed roles in many opera scenes at th RCM, including Alcina and Morgana in Handel’s Alcina, Romilda Serses, Marenka The Bartered Bride, Serpina La Serva Padrona [Pergolesi] and Rose Maybud Ruddigore, and Sandrina in Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera. She has also performed Susanna The Marriage of Figaro and Miss Wordsworth Albert Herring at Oxenfoord Summer Course.
In addition to opera, Grace has an equal passion for song, and she loves collaborating with other musicians, creating exciting recital programmes, with a special interest in promoting the works of female composers. In October this year Grace performed with duo partner Victoire Pruvost at the Oxford Lieder Festival 2021 as part of the prestigious master-course there led by Joan Rodgers and Julius Drake. She has also participated in a Lieder collaborative masterclass with world-renowned accompanist and coach, Helmut Deutsch.
Most recently in 2022 Grace performed at The Grange Festival in their productions of Verdi’s Macbeth (where she performed the role of the Soprano Apparition) and The Yeomen of the Guard.
Charity work has always been a very important part of her life and she has already raised over £100,000 for charities such as The Royal British Legion and Petal Childhood Cancer Research etc by organising concerts and producing four charity CDs. She is an honoury member of both these charities and has won several awards including ‘The Young Citizen Award’ from the High Sheriff of Lancashire and a ‘BBC Rotary Young Citizen’ Award’ – (singing live on the BBC News 24 Channel). Grace regularly performs for Rotary events, and has recently become a founding member of The Rotaract Club of London. During the Covid-19 pandemic, singing on zoom, she raised £6000 for Polio and the homeless charity CRISIS.
She is passionate about all aspects of performance, singing many genres of music and is happiest when onstage performing for an audience.
Samantha Oxborough – Mezzo Soprano
We welcome Samantha back to sing with the choir, having previously sung with us in the Mozart Requiem.
Throughout her childhood Samantha sang and played the euphonium in her native East Lancs. Supported at times by The Pendle Young Musicians Bursary and Orion GMS she studied with Christine Cairns at The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, winning many prizes and awards, performing frequently in operas and recitals, and coming third in the prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Bursary held in Blackburn.
She also won The Geraint Morris Award in Cardiff and sang with the Massed Welsh Male Voice Choirs in The Royal Albert Hall.
Moving on to The National Opera Studio she was one of the generation affected by the Covid Pandemic but whilst there notably co-operated with the composer Cheryl Frances Hoad to create Asphodel. (2020)
With music still recovering Samantha resumed working front of house at Symphony Hall and now also as a security guard! She started teaching singing in a secondary school and was engaged to sing the National Anthem at The Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. This was the last time the words "God Save the Queen" was sung at a major public event. Following this, Samantha and Malala were requested to meet the then Prince Charles -now our King.
She sang (and guarded!) at the Warner’s Shepton Motor Home Show, sang the "new " National Anthem at The Wolves v Manchester City Premier League match. She has a cameo part in a BBC programme divulged and aired in the spring.
Upcoming work includes a recital in her home village of Sabden and she is representing the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Alumini in a performance space at Symphony Hall, and a masterclass/project for Birmingham Opera which involves a performance in the railway station.
She is also involved in a singing project in Wales for children of special needs, and has recently sung as guest soloist with the KVU Singers celebrating a lifetime of music making from their conductor Frank Smith, (over one hundred years from him and his father),
This will be Samantha’s first Messiah and she is very much looking forward to it.
..... oh, and some more security guarding to see out 2022!
Nicholas Watts - Tenor
Dean Robinson - Bass
