PROGRAMME
Schubert - An die Leier
Haydn - Et Incarnatus Est from Missa Cellenis
Parry - No Longer Mourn for Me
Mozart - Il Padre Adorato
Schubert - Der Zwerg
Parry - Farewell Thou Art Too Dear
Poulenc - Hyde Park
Schubert - Auf dem See
Duparc - Phidylé
Mozart - Gia Divento Freddo
Quilter - Go, Lovely Rose
Joel Williams is a tenor at the Royal College of Music International Opera Studio. He studies with Tim Evans-Jones, and is the Kiri te Kanawa Scholar supported by the Independent Opera Scholarship. Joel spent much of his youth as a boy-treble in Europe's opera houses, in roles ranging from one of Die Zauberflöte’s DreiKnaben to Cobweb in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Joel went on to study History at King's College, Cambridge where he was a Choral Scholar. As a concert soloist he has performed a broad range of repertoire including Verdi's Otello(Roderigo), Haydn's Creation, Bach’s St Matthew Passion, and Britten’s Serenade for Tenor Horn and Strings. On stage, he has played Tamino The Magic Flute, the Mayor Albert Herring, and Count Belfiore La Finta Giardiniera. Joel was a Young Artist for Opera Holland Park Young singing Don Ottavio Don Giovanni, an Alvarez Young Artist at Garsington Opera and a member of the Verbier Festival Academy.
Joel is also so grateful to those who have supported him up to this point. Many thanks to the Mason Family, the H F Music Award Foundation, the Ladies of the Soirée d'Or, the Humphrey Richardson Taylor Charitable Trust, the Josephine Baker Trust, the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, the Kathleen Trust, the Seary Charitable Trust, the Il CircoloItalian Cultural Association, the Ryan Davies Memorial Fund, the Mario Lanza Foundation, the Philip Bates Trust, and the Michael James Trust. Joel is proud to be a Concordia Foundation Artist.
Pianist Marie Otaka is currently a student on the Artist Diploma of Performance in Collaborative Piano at the Royal College of Music (RCM), studying piano with Roger Vignoles and harpsichord with Terence Charlston as a Stanbridge Drake-Brockman Scholar. She is also generously supported by the Clemence Charitable Trust.
She firstly read Linguistics (Phonetics) for Master’s Degree at the Sophia University Tokyo, and went on to the Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music to study music. Her strong interests in English art songs and working with singers and instrumentalists led her to the study for Piano Accompaniment at the RCM. She completed the Master’s Degree of Performance in Piano Accompaniment with Distinction in 2017 and was awarded the first accompanists’ prize at the Brooks-van der Pump English Song Competition, the best accompanist prize at the Lieder Competition and the Titanic Memorial Prize (for the best accompanist performance) at the Lies Askonas Competition.
Her performance highlights have included Schumann ‘Liederkreis op39’ masterclass with Sarah Walker at the Oxford Lieder Festival, Wolf ‘Mörike Lieder’ workshop with Roger Vignoles at the RCM, the performance at the Royal Albert Hall ‘Afternoon Tea with Opera’ series, the performance in part of the exhibition ‘Opera: Passion, Power and Politics’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a duo performance with flute at the Chofu International Music Festival in Japan. For the instrumental repertoire, she works regularly with the flautist, Sofia Castillo.
She also enjoys playing the harpsichord as a continuo player and performs annually with a baroque vocal ensemble ‘Chaconne Ensemble’. She has appeared in the concert at the Handel House London, the Utrecht Early Music Festival Fringe Concert in the Netherlands, and the final concerts as part of the International Handel Academy Karlsruhe in Germany.
