Course Directors Julie Kennard, Ian Partridge and John Huw Davies

The course will occupy three ninety-minute sessions per 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 solos should be prepared, one for the fist 'run-through' on Saturday.Please beardin mind that the longer the piece the less time there is for coaching.

The course will then follow this pattern:

Julie Kennard will give each singer two mater-class sessions during the week,m in eahc of which class members inga song/aria, and receive coaching on various aspects of their singing.

The remaining sessions will concentrate on:

a) Performance and Interpretation (two sessions with Ian Partridge),

Or

b) One session on Performance and Interpretation (IP), and one on Vocal Technique and Song Preparation (with John Hum Davies).

For a) you should choose two songs which you have studied in depth, know well (probably from memory) and which you feel represents the best of your singing.

For b) choose one song as in a) (for IP) and a second song comparatively new to you and not yet performed, or which causes you particular technical problems (for JHD).

You should therefore indicate on your application form(under 'Any additional information') whether you wish to choose a) or b) above (Please note that timetabling this class in complex, but we will make every endeavor to satisfy you particular preference).

Some sessions will be devoted to ensemble work, and students who have prepared ensembles beforehand should inform the organisers, 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. The work to be performed this year will be Bruckner's Mass in F minor in which there are solo and ensemble parts. If youwish to take part as a soloist please study the work before hand, and be prepared to sing suitable extracts at the auditions on Sunday 20th July.

Julie Kennard read music at the University of Southampton and the went on to the Royal College of Music to study singing with Ruth Packer (who taught at this Summer School for many years). She has appeared in Mahler's Eighth Symphony for RTE Television; performed the role of Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas in Italy, Poland, Switzerland and France; and in Iceland she featured as soprano soloist in John Speight's Symphony No 2 for the Symposium of Nordic composers, a work she has subsequently recorded. Verdi's Requiem has also played a large part in Julie's career and to date she has sung 80 performances of that great work. English music has featured strongly in her repertoire and she has given numerous performances of Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony, Elgar's The Kingdom and Apsotles, Herbert Howells' Hymnus Paradisi and Britten's War Requiem. Recordings include Monterverdi's Christmas Vespers, Haydn's Nelson Mass with St Paul's Cathedral, Howells'Hymnus Paradisi with Vernon Handley and the RLPO and a CD of Victorian and Edwardian Carols entitled All Hayle to the Days. Julie also enjoys teaching singing 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 tenor voice, with its most distinctive timbre, and his unfailing sensitivity to words have earned him a devoted following through his hundreds of broadcasts and recordings. Ian Partridge's phenomenal list of recordings includes Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin (first choice in BBC Radio 3s Building a Library), Schumann's Dichterliebe and Liederkreis Opus 39, Britten's Serenade, Vaughan Williams's On Wenlock Edge, Warlock's The Curlew, The Thames Television production of Benjamin Britten's St Nicolas, with Ian Partridge in the title role, won the Prix Italia.

He made his operatic debut at Covent Garden singing the role of Iopas in Berlioz' Les Troyens, conducted by Sir Colin Davis and subsequently recorded by Philips. He has also enjoyed taking masterclasses on Lieder, English Song and Early Music at venues as diverse as Aldeburgh, Vancouver, Ravinia, Trondheim, Versailles and Helsinki. He is a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, and was awarded the CBE in 1992 for services to music.

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 Ian Partridge, and Ian Humphris in the Baccholian Singers. He later became Senior Music Advisor to Gwynedd CC, 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 BBC Northern Singers, and regularly gives concerts of major choral works with choirs and professional orchestras (last year conducting the Verdi Requiem at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester). He has been involved in this class for over thirty years, and took over as Director of the course in 2004.