Friday 11th April
Heart’s Haven
Andrew Hamilton – baritone
Iain Burnside – piano
7.30pm (75 minutes, no interval)
Ludlow Assembly Rooms
Tickets go on sale in January 2025. Festival passes are now available.
Tickets £35, or book this concert with ‘Songs of Auld Lang Syne’ at 9.30pm for just £40.
British baritone and rising star Andrew Hamilton returns to the UK from Munich, and the ensemble of the Bayerische Staatsoper, for a very international recital programme.
Alongside music by Vaughan Williams, Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn make a rare appearance at Ludlow English Song Weekend, performed in masterly, witty singing translations by Jeremy Sams. To these German Lieder, all sharing a Venetian theme, we add songs by Reynaldo Hahn, a French composer born in Venezuela and three atmospheric ‘Songs of Venice’ by Michael Head, written in 1974 for Dame Janet Baker, who is joining us at this year’s festival.
Cole Porter rounds off a cosmopolitan evening.
“Andrew Hamilton found an astonishing wealth of expression.”
Online Merkur
| Ralph Vaughan Williams | Love-sight See the Chariot at Hand The splendour falls Heart’s Haven The Water Mill Silent Noon |
| Archie John WORLD PREMIERE |
This Lonely Hill |
| Michael Head | Three Songs of Venice |
| Franz Schubert | Gondelfahrer |
| Robert Schumann | Zwei Venetianische Lieder |
| Felix Mendelssohn | Venetiansches Gondellied |
| Reynaldo Hahn | Che peca! |
| Reynaldo Hahn | La barcheta |
| Franz Schubert | Il modo di prender moglie |
| Cole Porter | Where is the life that late I led |
Andrew Hamilton
Baritone Andrew Hamilton is currently a member of the ensemble at the Bayerische Staatsoper (2022-2025), he is also former member of the Opera Studio at the Bayerische Staatsoper. Beginning in the 2025/26 Season, Andrew will be a member of the Ensemble at the Staatsoper Hamburg.
In the 2024/25 Season, Andrew will make his role debut as Valentin in a new production of Faust at the Teatro Massimo, Palermo; while at the Bayerische Staatsoper his appearances will include his role debut as Dandini (La Cenerentola) and Schaunard (La Bohème) and he will make his debut at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl in concert performances of Rigoletto and La Traviata. On the recital stage he will give his first solo recital at the Wigmore Hall with pianist Michael Pandya, while on the concert platform he will appear with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast and with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester in Carmina Burana conducted by Patrick Hahn.
Iain Burnside
Interweaving roles as pianist and Sony Award-winning broadcaster with equal aplomb, Iain Burnside (“pretty much ideal” BBC Music Magazine) is also a master programmer with an instinct for the telling juxtaposition.
He has performed in recitals with many of the world’s leading singers. Earlier in his career he had the privilege of working with Dame Margaret Price, Victoria de los Angeles, Galina Gorchakova and Susan Chilcott. More recent collaborators include Rosa Feola, Ailish Tynan, Lawrence Brownlee and Roderick Williams. For Wigmore Hall, he has curated a number of recital series featuring both English and Russian repertoire.
He has been Artistic Director of the Ludlow English Song Weekend since its inception in 2002, committed to exploring this rich, diverse repertoire and to celebrating different generations of vocal talent. His discography of over sixty recordings straddles an exuberantly eclectic repertoire ranging from Beethoven to Judith Weir, with a special place reserved for the highways and byways of English Song. CDs of Britten, Finzi, Ireland and Vaughan Williams with Roderick Williams have been critically acclaimed, as have their recordings of the three Schubert cycles. Burnside’s association with Delphian Records spans both a hugely diverse range of British composers and the complete songs of Rachmaninov (“electrifying” Daily Telegraph).
Burnside has a long association with BBC Radio3, both as programme maker and presenter. In demand as teacher and animateur, he works at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, on the Jette Parker Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House and as International Visiting Artist at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. For Guildhall School, Burnside has written and devised a number of highly individual theatre pieces, based variously around Schubert, Brahms, Gurney and Britten. Other musical activities feature Burnside as a committed chamber musician, notably as a founder member of Trio Balthasar. He has served on a variety of international competition juries, both for singers and for pianists, among them Concours Reine Elisabeth in Brussels, Busoni Competition in Bolzano, and Wigmore Hall International Song Competition. He is Artistic Consultant to Grange Park Opera.