Sunday 27 October

10am to 4.30pm, St Paul’s Girls’ School

Expression and communication through text and performance

with Richard Stokes · Rob Cates · Iain Burnside · Barbara Houseman

Richard Stokes

‘The Penguin Book of English Song.  An illustrated guide through seven centuries of poetry and song

Richard Stokes, Professor of Lieder at the Royal Academy of Music, has given many lectures and masterclasses on Lieder and art song in the UK and abroad, and is a regular juror at international song competitions. For the operatic stage he has translated Wozzeck and La voix humaine (Opera North), and Parsifal, Lulu, L’Amour de loin and Jakob Lenz (ENO). His books include The Spanish Song Companion (with Jacqueline Cockburn), J.S. Bach – The Complete Cantatas (Scarecrow Press), A French Song Companion (with Graham Johnson) (OUP) and The Book of Lieder (Faber). With Alfred Brendel he collaborated on the latter’s Collected Poems: Playing the Human Game (Phaidon). His translations of Kafka’s Metamorphosis and The Trial have been published by Hesperus Press, and Alma Books published his translation (with Hannah Stokes) of Kafka’s Letter to his Father. Penguin Classics published The Penguin Book of English Song – Seven Centuries of Poetry from Chaucer to Auden in the spring of 2016 (now available in paperback), and Alma Classics have recently released his translation of Jules Renard’s complete Histoires Naturelles in a dual-language edition (2017). He was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2012.

Rob Cates

The authentic singer in musical theatre, commercial and contemporary Christian music

Rob combines his professional work as a Vocology in Practice accredited vocal coach with itinerant Christian ministry as a worship leader and speaker travelling extensively in the UK and Europe. As well as a thriving private vocal coaching practice, workshops, training events and choral direction, he is first study voice tutor for the BA in Theology, Music & Worship at London School of Theology. Previously he taught technical voice to students on the MA in Musical Theatre at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. He is passionate about the connection between spirit, mind and body in singing.

He holds degrees in music from City University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (BMus Hons, piano), University of York (MA) and Institute of Education (PGCE). In 2010 he was made a Fellow of the College of Teachers and awarded Chartered London Teacher Status. In 2017 he achieved Estill Voice International’s Certificate in Figure Proficiency and a distinction for VoiceWorkshop UK’s Certificate in Advanced Anatomy for Voice Professionals. He specialises in coaching singers of contemporary commercial music genres, musical theatre and contemporary Christian music. He is passionate about wellness and helping people break free from limiting mindsets in order to achieve abundance in every area of their lives.

Iain Burnside

Masterclass with singers and pianists from the RAM, RCM, Guildhall and Trinity

Iain Burnside is a pianist who has appeared in recital with many of the world’s leading singers (“pretty much ideal” BBC Music Magazine). He is also an insightful programmer with an instinct for the telling juxtaposition. His recordings straddle an exuberantly eclectic repertoire ranging from Beethoven and Schubert to the cutting edge, as in the Gramophone Award-winning NMC Songbook. Recent recordings include the complete Rachmaninov songs (Delphian) with seven outstanding Russian artists (“the results are electrifying” Daily Telegraph). Burnside’s passion for English song is reflected in acclaimed CDs of Britten, Finzi, Ireland, Butterworth and Vaughan Williams, many with baritone Roderick Williams.

Away from the piano he is active as a writer and broadcaster. As presenter of BBC Radio 3’s Voices he won a Sony Radio Award. For Guildhall School of Music & Drama he has devised a number of singular theatre pieces. A Soldier and a Maker, based on the life of Ivor Gurney, was performed at the Barbican Centre and the Cheltenham Festival, and later broadcast by BBC R3 on Armistice Day. His new project Swansong has been premiered at the Kilkenny Festival and will play in Milton Court in November. Future highlights include performances of the three Schubert songcycles with Roderick Williams at Wigmore Hall. A Delphian release of songs by Nikolai Medtner launches a major series of Russian song in the 2018 Wigmore Hall season. Other forthcoming projects feature Ailish Tynan, Rosa Feola, Andrew Watts, Robin Tritschler and Benjamin Appl. He is Artistic Director of the Ludlow English Song Weekend and Artistic Consultant to Grange Park Opera.

Barbara Houseman

Masterclass with students on speech into song or song into speech

Barbara Houseman has worked in theatre for forty years both as a voice, text and acting coach and a director. After seven years dividing her time between directing and voice work, she spent six years in the world-renowned Voice Department at the Royal Shakespeare Company working alongside Cicely Berry and Andrew Wade, and then became Associate Director at the Young Vic, in London, working alongside Tim Supple. Since 1998 she has worked freelance coaching voice, text and acting and working as an associate director. Among other clients she coaches Daniel Radcliffe and Jude Law when they are preparing projects for stage and screen. She has been Season Associate Director (Voice & Text) at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre since 2012 working on musicals and opera there as well as plays.  Voice and text work on shows includes: Strictly Ballroom, the Musical (Piccadilly);  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Old Vic); The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Gielgud); the All Female Trilogy (King’s Cross Theatre); the Kenneth Branagh season (Garrick); St Joan, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Coriolanus and Trelawney of the Wells  (Donmar); and Macbeth and Richard III (Trafalgar Transformed). She is the author of Finding Your Voice and Targeting Text [and Subtext], both published by Nick Hern Books.

PLUS:

• Eva Hornstein with her secondhand music stall
• Members’ table where you can promote your own events or publications

Getting there

• The school is ten minutes’ walk from Hammersmith tube station (Piccadilly, District & Circle, and Metropolitan lines).
• On-street parking is free on Sundays in Brook Green.
• Step-free and wheelchair access is available.