Helen Charlston and Sholto Kynoch
Saturday 30 January 2027, 7.30pm
Programme
Lydé
Néèere
Nadia Boulanger Elle a vendu mon Coeur
Joseph Haydn Arianna a Naxos
Robert Schumann Dichterliebe, Op.48
About
Helen Charlston
Helen Charlston’s ability to make each performance completely her own and her depth of connection with audiences has earned her international acclaim as “one of the most exciting voices in the new generation of British singers” (Alexandra Coghlan, Gramophone). She was recently a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist (2021-23), and was the 2023 Gramophone Award winner for Best Concept Album and also collected the Vocal award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards for her second Delphian album: Battle Cry.
This season, Helen makes her debut at Dutch National Opera in the world premiere of Michel van der Aa’s Theory of Flames in the role of Marianne. On the concert platform she sings the title role in Solomon with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Mozart Requiem at Casa da Musica under Andreas Spering and also the Czech Philharmonic under Giovanni Antonini, Bach B minor mass with De Nederlandse Bachvereniging and Richard Egarr, and Bach St Matthew Passion with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra under Laurence Cummings. In recital she collaborates with the Consone Quartet at the Brighton Early Music Festival and also at Oxford Song, with Sholto Kynoch at the Wimbledon Festival and the National Centre for Early Music amongst other venues, with Roman Rabinovich in Canada, and she performs an ensemble programme at Fundación Juan March in Madrid.
Further appearances on the concert platform include Bach B minor mass with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Mendelssohn’s Elijah at the BBC Proms, Britten’s Phaedra live in concert with BBC Philharmonic, Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus with the RIAS Kammerchor at the Berlin Philharmonie, and also Bach’s Magnificat in South Korea, and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with WDR Köln.
Sholto Kynoch
Sholto Kynoch is a sought-after pianist who specialises in song and chamber music. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the Oxford International Song Festival (formerly Oxford Lieder), which won a prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award in 2015, cited for its ‘breadth, depth and audacity’ of programming. In July 2018, Sholto was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in the RAM Honours.
Working with many of today’s leading singers, recent recitals have taken him to Wigmore Hall, Heidelberger Frühling, Beethovenfest Bonn, the Zeist International Lied Festival in the Netherlands, the LIFE Victoria festival and Palau de la Música in Barcelona, the Fundación Juan March in Madrid, the Opéra de Lille, Opernhaus Zürich, Maison Symphonique de Montréal, Queensland Art Song Festival in Australia, and many other leading venues and festivals nationally and internationally.
His extensive discography includes the first complete edition of the songs of Hugo Wolf, recorded live at the Oxford International Song Festival, the final volume of which was released in January 2023. He has also recorded the complete songs of John Ireland and Havergal Brian, as well as recital discs of Schubert and Schumann songs.