Course Directors Julie Kennard, Ian Partridge and John Huw Davies

The course will occupy three ninety-minute sessions each day and the majority of the sessions will be conducted in 'Master-class' format, where students perform to, and are coached in front of their fellow singers. Five varied solos should be prepared for these sessions. Tutors deal with technical and interpretative aspects of each performance in the way they feel appropriate to the individual student. Some sessions will be devoted to ensemble work, and students who have prepared ensembles beforehand should inform the administrator, who will endeavour to circulate the information to other members of the class. Singers of suitable standard are often selected to take part in the evening students' concerts, and in the final concert on Friday night, at which Saint-Saëns 'Requiem' will be performed. Auditions for solo parts will be held Sunday July 25th. Please study the work before the course.

In addition, opportunities may arise for suitable students to work with the Art of Accompanying class. Please read the class notes later in the brochure.

Julie Kennard read music at Southampton University and then went on the Royal College of Music to study with Ruth Packer (who taught at this Summer School for many years). She has appeared in Mahler's Eighth Symphony for RTE Television, as Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas in Italy, Poland, Switzerland and France; and in Icelend was soprano soloist in John Speight's Symphony No. 2 for the Symposium of Nordic Composers — a work she has subsequently recorded. She has given over 80 performances of Verdi’s Requiem, and has also given numerous performances of Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony, Elgar's The Kingdom and Apostles, Herbert Howells’ Hymnus Paradisi and Britten’s War Requiem. Recordings include Monteverdi's Christmas Vespers, Haydn's Nelson Mass with St. Paul's Cathedral, Hymnus paradisi with Vernon Handley and the RLPO. Julie teaches at the Royal Academy of Music, and is the Artistic Director of the Grove Park Music Festival.

Ian Partridge has an international reputation as a concert singer and recitalist. His phenomenal list of recordings includes Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin (first choice in BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library), Schumann's Dichterliebe and Liederkreis Opus 39, Britten’s Serenade, Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge, Warlock’s The Curlew, three discs of English 20th century songs, Romantic Songs for voice and guitar with Jakob Lindberg, Schubert’s Winterreise with Richard Burnett on a period piano, and, with The Sixteen Choir and Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Harry Christophers, the complete set of Handel's Chandos Anthems, Purcell’s The Fairy Queen and the part of the Evangelist in Bach's St John Passion. The Thames Television production of Benjamin Britten ’s St Nicolas, with lan Partridge in the title role, won the Prix Italia. He made his operatic debut at Covent Garden singing the role of lopas in Berlioz 'Les Troyens, conducted by Sir Colin Davis and subsequently recorded by Philips. Ian is retiring from singing at the end of 2008, but will continue to teach, give master classes and adjudicate. He is a Professor at the Royal Academy of Music, and was awarded the CBE in 1992 for services to music. Ian retired from singing in 2008.

John Huw Davies studied and taught at Trinity College of Music, and freelanced as a singer and conductor giving many Radio 3 and television recitals (as well as presenting programmes in both media) and performing regularly in major concerts in Britain and Europe. As an ensemble singer he gave many hundreds of performances with both lan Partridge and ian Humphris in the ’Baccholian Singers’. He later became Senior Music Adviser to to Gwynedd C.C., and in recent years has specialised in courses for vocalists, teaching over two hundred singers every year. He has also conducted the BBC Singers and the BBC Northern Singers, and regularly gives concerts of major choral works with choirs and professional soloists and orchestras. He has been involved in CSSM since its days at Gypsy Hill College and Charterhouse, and took over as CSSM director in 2004.