LIVE-STREAMED

Beethoven: Overture in C, “Zur Namensfeier“
Beethoven: Mass in C

Koor Singers and Players
Charlotte Shaw, soprano
Martha McLorinan, mezzo-soprano
Laurence Kilsby, tenor
Jonathan Brown, bass
Simon Capet, conductor

16th December 2020
7:30 (GMT) | 2:30 (EST) | 11:30 (PST)

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, performances may only be one hour in length.

2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth and in celebration of this Koor Singers and Players present a concert on the composer’s birthday.

Join us from the comfort of your own home

Due to COVID-19 restrictions we are unable to have an audience join us for this performance. But never fear, we are live-streaming the concert and a pass only costs £15 per household.

Performer’s biographies

British soprano Charlotte Shaw (nee Beament) is an alumna of the Rising Star of the Enlightenment programme for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Alvarez Young Artist Programme and Guildhall School of Music and Drama. 

Charlotte is a regular soloist for English National Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera and has also sung for Glyndebourne Jerwood Artists, Garsington Festival, Brighton Festival, London Handel Festival and Barber Opera.

Her operatic repertoire includes Tytania A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, Lucia THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA, Title role SEMELE, Serpetta LA FINTA GIARDINIERA, Michal SAUL, Title role BERENICE, Zerlina DON GIOVANNI, Barbarina LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, Belinda DIDO AND AENEAS, Mabel PIRATES OF PENZANCE, Armilla in Porpora’s L’AGRIPPINA, Teresa in Julian Philips THE YELLOW SOFA, Miss Schlesen in Philip Glass’ SATYAGRAHA and Shadow Marnie in the world premiere of Nico Muhly’s MARNIE.

Concert performances include Handel’s SUSANNA, Haydn’s CREATION, MISSA SANCTI NICOLAI, THE SEASONS, NELSON MASS and HARMONIEMESSE, Mozarts’ REQUIEM, EXSULTATE JUBILATE and SOLEMNES DE CONFESSORE, Handel’s MESSIAH, ISRAEL IN EGYPT, and SAUL, Bach’s B MINOR MASS and CHRISTMAS ORATORIO, Villa Lobos’ BACHIANAS BRASILIERAS, Vivaldi’s NULLA IN MUNDO PAX SINCERA, Mahler’s FOURTH SYMPHONY, Strauss’ VIER LETZTE LIEDE in venues including Queen Elizabeth Hall, Cadogan Hall, Kings Place and Snape Maltings and on tours of Europe and Asia with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Gabrieli Consort and London Chamber Arts Orchestra. Recent engagements include Glass’ AKHNATEN and Birtwhistle’s MASK OF ORPHEUS for ENO, a staged Bach ST JOHN PASSION with Sir Simon Rattle and Peter Sellers, semi-staged productions of Purcell’s FAIRY QUEEN and KING ARTHUR with the Gabrieli Consort and Handel’s SAUL for the Théatre du Châtelet in Paris.

Martha McLorinan studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where she held a scholarship and won the Margaret Tann Williams prize. She was also a prizewinner at the Royal Overseas League and the Thelma King Award, and now enjoys a career of oratorio, opera and recording across the UK and Europe.

Recent solo oratorio highlights include Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at St. John’s Cathedral, Malta (Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/John Butt), St. John Passion at Zarayadye Concert Hall, Moscow (Taverner Consort and Players/Andrew Parrott), Christmas Oratorio at Philharmonie Luxembourg (Le Concert Lorrain/Andrew Parrott), 

B Minor Mass at Kloster Eberbach (Gabrieli Consort and Players/Paul McCreesh) and at the British Museum (Academy of Ancient Music/Nigel Short), Magnificat at Snape Maltings (Les Siecles/Francois Xavier-Roth), Handel’s Messiah at Birmingham Symphony Hall (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Simon Halsey), Haydn’s Harmoniemesse at the Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam (The Sixteen and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century/Harry Christophers), and Copland’s In The Beginning at St. John’s Smith Square (Tenebrae/Nigel Short). 

She also works regularly with choral societies across the country singing works such as Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, Verdi’s Requiem and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius. Operatic roles include Notary’s Wife and cover Anna (Strauss’s Intermezzo) and Lotinka (Dvorak’s The Jacobin) for Buxton Festival Opera, La Messaggera and Proserpina (Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo) at Cheltenham and Swidnica festivals (i fagiolini/Robert Hollingworth), First Witch (Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas) at Royal Festival Hall (London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Roger Norrington) and Second Witch at Cadogan Hall (Trevor Pinnock and Friends). 

She made her BBC proms debut as the Alto 2 soloist in Stockhausen’s Mittwoch Aus Licht (Ex Cathedra/Jeffrey Skidmore). Martha’s work with Tenebrae has taken her to the Royal Opera House, where she sang in a quartet of female voices for Joby Talbot’s ballet Alice in Wonderland. She has also enjoyed various collaborations with i fagiolini such as Betrayal: A Polyphonic Crime Drama (a fully staged show of Gesualdo with six singers and six dancers) and How Like an Angel (seven acrobats and nine singers). 

Martha features on various recordings, and can be heard as a soloist in Garcia’s Missa Pastoril (Brazilian Adventures, Ex Cathedra/Jeffrey Skidmore, Hyperion) and in Judith Bingham’s The Drowned Lovers (Music of the Spheres, Tenebrae/Nigel Short, Bene Arte). She also recently filmed this, for release later this year. Earlier this year, she recorded songs by William Byrd with Fretwork for release in 2021. 

Future plans include recording songs by Alec Roth with the Sacconi Quartet, after having premiered his Beginnings and Endings last year.

Laurence is a British Tenor and an ABRSM Vocal Scholar supported by the Victoria Robey Scholarship at the Royal College of Music, under the tutelage of Tenor, Timothy Evans-Jones and Pianist, Gary Matthewman.

He is a Drake Calleja Scholar for the 2020/21 academic year and was the recipient of the First Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Society Bursary for Young Singers (2018). He looks forward to participating in the Carnegie Hall Song Studio with Renée Fleming and Gerald Martin Moore, as well as competing in the DAS LIED – International Song Competition in the new year. Laurence began his formal training as a chorister with the Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum, studying under Soprano, Bronwen Mills.

He won the title of BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year in 2009, subsequently making his solo debut at the Royal Albert Hall, broadcast on Sky Arts. He appears as a soloist on a number of recordings, including the critically-acclaimed recording of Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Solemn Vespers (Schola Cantorum), as well as the Grammy nominated album, Handel’s L’Allegro, Penseroso ed il Moderato (Gabrieli Consort). 

Among his recent engagements is Blow’s Venus & Adonis with Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company (Wigmore Hall) Bach’s St. John Passion with the Gabrieli Consort (Cathédrale de Lausanne), Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Masaaki Susuki and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Théâtre des Champs-Élysées), Peter Sellars’ staging of the St. John Passion with Sir Simon Rattle and the OAE (Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg), Handel’s Messiah with Nicholas Chalmers and the Britten Sinfonia (Nevill Holt Opera), Mozart’s Requiem (St. Martin-in-the Fields), Bach’s B Minor Mass with the London Handel Players (St. John Smith Square), Handel’s Esther for the London Handel Festival (Wigmore Hall).

Laurence has appeared in masterclasses with Sir Thomas Allen, Amanda Roocroft, Dame Sarah Connolly, Roderick Williams, Kathryn Harries MBE and James Gilchrist and has also given recitals at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin and the Cheltenham Music Festival. Operatic roles include; European debut as Apollo/Pastore/Spirito in L’Orfeo (Nederlandse Reisopera), Bud/Phoebus in The Fairy Queen (Waterperry Opera Festival), Cover Lysander for A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Nevill Holt Opera), Lucano/Famigliare in L’incoronazione di Poppea (Longborough Festival Opera), Post Office Clerk in Kommilitonen! (Welsh National Youth Opera). 

Jonathan Brown was born in Toronto and studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music followed by the University of Western Ontario. After moving to England he continued his studies at the University of Cambridge as well as the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh with Sir Thomas Allen and Anthony Rolfe Johnson.

Operatic roles include Marcello (La Boheme, Royal Albert Hall), Belcore (L’Elisir d’Amore), Count Almaviva, Yamadori (Madame Butterfly), Giove (La Calisto), Orested (Giasone), Garibaldo (Rodelinda), Ariodate (Xerxes), Silvio (I Pagliacci), Malatesta (Don Pasquale), Masetto (Don Giovanni), Shepherd (Venus and Adonis) and Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas).

He performed the role of Trojan (Idomeneo) for Sir Simon Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic in the Salzburg Easter Festival. He has performed Orfeo (Pastore) at Lille Opera, Le Chatelet, Paris and Opera du Rhin with Emmanuelle Haim. He made his debut with Sir John Eliot Gardiner in Holland as the baritone soloists in a concert of Bach cantatas and there after was a regular soloist with performances in Zurich, Brussels and Paris.

These performances formed part of the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage and the subsequent CD release of all the cantata on the Soli Dei Gloria label. Recent solo concert work has included the Messiah, B Minor Mass, St John and St Matthew Passions at Westminster Abbey, The Seasons. Bach Magnificat in Italy, Sea Symphony, Ich have genug BWV 82 at Clare College, Cambridge and the Venetian Coronation (Gabrieli Consort at the Lincoln Centre, New York. He has worked with Philippe Herreweghe touring South America (Christus in Bach’s St John Passion) and he features in Herrweghe’s recording of Purcell’s Ode to St Cecilia for Harmonia Mundi.

Other recordings for Harmonia Mundi include Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Blow’s Venus and Adonis under the direction of Rene Jacobs. He has recorded the baritone solos in the Faure Requiem with the London Festival Orchestra for BMG and he appears in the role of the Forester in Sullivan’s The Golden Legend for Hyperion. On the Priory Label a world premiere recording of Wesley’s cantata Confitebor tibi has just been released.