2019 Late Night Session
** Tickets are no longer available to buy online, but there will be tickets available on the door half an hour before the concert starts – payment either by cash or cheque **
Time & Date:
10pm, Friday 24 May 2019
Venue:
Priory Church of St George, Church Street, Dunster, TA24 6SH
Who:
Emma Brain-Gabbott | Soprano
Rachel Wick | Harp
Ticket Prices:
£10 (non-tiered) including complimentary half pint of beer
Sponsored by:
Quantock Brewery
Running Time:
50 minutes (no interval)
Programme Info:
Unwind and relax with an hour of sumptuous music for soprano and harp in the candle-lit surroundings of St George’s, with a glass of award-winning local beer included in your ticket price. The perfect way to start the weekend!
Emma and Rachel will be exploring twentieth century works by British and French composers, including songs by Poulenc, Caplet, Lennox Berkeley and Benjamin Britten.
Artist Biographies
Emma Brain-Gabbott
Emma Brain-Gabbott was born and educated in Cheltenham, before going on to read music at Trinity College, Cambridge, where she was also a choral scholar.
Since embarking upon her singing career, Emma has taken part in a wide range of musical activities, ranging from pop (she features on albums by such artists as the Pet Shop Boys, Take That, Bjork and Jarvis Cocker), West End shows, TV and film soundtrack projects (including Merlin and the latest Tim Burton/Johnny Depp film), through to opera, such as Peter Grimes in Salzburg under Sir Simon Rattle. Emma also enjoys smaller scale vocal ensemble work, performing, touring and recording with such groups as the Sixteen, the BBC Singers, Academy of Ancient Music and I Fagiolini, among others.
Emma also works extensively as a soloist: she made her Proms debut with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, and rejoined the CBSO as soloist in the first recording of Julian Anderson’s Four American Songs. Other recent oratorio work includes Mozart’s C Minor Mass in London, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Sweden, Haydn’s Nelson Mass in Tewkesbury Abbey, and solos in the UK premiere of Lindberg’s Graffiti at the Festival Hall. Future engagements include tours of France and Spain with the Sixteen, concerts in Versailles with the Dunedin Consort, and Bach’s B minor Mass in Leipzig with English Concert. Emma is now very pleased to call West Somerset (specifically Porlock) her home.
Rachel Wick
Rachel Wick is a graduate of St. Peter’s College, Oxford and the Royal Academy of Music. As an orchestral player she has performed with many of the UKs leading ensembles, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, BBC Concert Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, London Concert Orchestra, English Session Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, as well as with orchestras further afield including the European Union Youth Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of India and Norwegian Opera. She has recorded with New College and Christ Church Cathedral Choirs, Oxford and has broadcast live on Classic FM with Her Majesty’s Choir of the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, and appears on Howard Goodall’s album Inspired.
Alongside a large private teaching practice, Rachel teaches harp at Berkhamsted School and the Junior Department of the Royal Academy of Music, and coaches for the National Children’s Orchestra. With her flute duo partner, Thomas Hancox, she plays for the charity CAVATINA Chamber Music Trust giving outreach concerts in primary schools. She appears miming in an orchestra for the latest Mission Impossible film, and was filmed for Google’s ‘Inside Abbey Road’ virtual online tour.
In May 2018 she was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. Rachel is also the Artistic Co-Director of Dunster Festival, a classical chamber music festival which takes place in May each year.