ACCLAIMED baritone Matthew Hargreaves and pianist Charlotte Forrest will be delighting an audience at King’s Ely this March.
Hargreaves, who won the Decca Prize in the 1997 Kathleen Ferrier Award Competition, and Forrest, who gained a Double Masters as an Accompanist and Répétiteur at the Guildhall School of Music, will both be performing at King’s Ely’s Recital Hall on Thursday, March 2nd.
The musical extravaganza is being held as part of the King’s Ely Concert Society’s 24th season programme, which is running until June this year.
Hargreaves was born in London and began singing as a chorister at Westminster Abbey. He went on to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Rudolph Piernay, where he won several prizes including an award from the Wolfson Foundation. He was also a finalist in the 1996 International Coloratura Singing Competition in Luxembourg. Hargreaves has an extensive concert and oratorio repertoire and has worked with all the major British orchestras. He has performed Handel’s Sing unto God with The Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Christopher Hogwood at the BBC Proms, Messiah with the Hallé Orchestra, Faure Requiem at the Welsh Proms, and Pulcinella with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin.
Forrest read music at the University of Edinburgh before gaining a Double Masters as an Accompanist and Répétiteur at the Guildhall School of Music and becoming the Leonard Hancock Scholar at the National Opera Studio. She is a regular visiting member of music staff at Opera North and ENO, as well as at Grange Park Opera, Garsington Festival, Opera Holland Park and the Royal Opera House, to name just a few.
The concert starts at 7.30pm and members of the public are invited to attend. Tickets, which are £15 for adults and free for children, are available by calling the King’s Ely Box Office on (01353) 653931 or by emailing music@kingsely.org.