Roderick Williams

Roderick Williams & Andrew West

Vaughan Williams, Ireland, Gurney and others: Songs on the seasons
Saxton: Time and the Seasons
Britten: Folksongs of the British Isles
Finzi: Before and After Summer, Op. 16

Roderick Williams

Roderick Williams encompasses a wide repertoire, from baroque to contemporary music, in the opera house, on the concert platform and in recital.

He works regularly with the major British opera companies, and is particularly associated with the baritone roles of Mozart. Abroad he has worked for Netherlands Opera and Florida Grand Opera. He has sung world premieres of operas by, among others, David Sawer, Sally Beamish, Michael van der Aa, Robert Saxton and Alexander Knaifel.

He has worked with orchestras throughout Europe, including all the BBC orchestras in the UK, and his many festival appearances include the BBC Proms, Edinburgh, Cheltenham and Aldeburgh.

Recent and future engagements include the Count in Le Nozze di Figaro for Scottish Opera, Ned Keene in Peter Grimes for ROH, Goryanchikov in From the House of the Dead for Opera North, Oronte in Medée, Pollux in Rameau’s Castor and Pollux and Toby Kramer in Van der Aa’s Sunken Garden for English National Opera, Van der Aa’s After Life at Melbourne State Theatre, as well as concerts with Le Concert Spirituel, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Hallé, Britten Sinfonia, City of London Sinfonia, King’s College Cambridge, the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, RIAS Kammerchor, Orquesta Sinfonica de Euskadi, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bach Collegium Japan, Pax Christi Chorale in Toronto, The Sixteen, The King’s Consort, London Philharmonic Orchestra as well as Delius’s Cynarawith the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at the 2012 BBC Proms, the Britten War Requiem with the Maggio Musicale and Semyon Bychkov in Florence and the UK premiere of Jonathan Harvey’s Wagner Dream with BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Andrew West 250Andrew West

Andrew West has developed partnerships with many of the country’s leading singers and instrumentalists. He appears regularly with Mark Padmore; their concerts together have included Mark’s debut Wigmore Hall recital, repeated at the Frick Collection in New York, and performances of the Six Songs from the Arabian as part of the South Bank’s Henze Festival. In 2009 they gave staged performances of Schubert’s Winterreise at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and in Aldeburgh.

He has given recitals and recorded with Emma Bell (a CD of Lieder by Strauss, Marx and Bruno Walter), Emily Beynon (music by Les Six for Hyperion), Alice Coote, James Gilchrist, Emma Johnson, Hakan Vramsmo and Roderick Williams. Andrew received the inaugural Gerald Moore Award for Accompanists, and for several years he acted as official accompanist to the Steans Institute for Singers at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago.

Andrew is one of the artistic directors of the Nuremberg International Chamber Music Festival, which presents English song unfamiliar to local audiences as well as more traditional repertoire. Highlights have included Tippett songs with Mark Padmore and Britten’s opera Noye’s Fludde, which was performed in a circus tent at Nuremberg Zoo.

As a duo pianist he has appeared at the City of London and Cheltenham Festivals with pianist Cedric Tiberghien. He is also closely involved with the Michael Clark Dance Company’s Stravinsky Project, performing the two-piano version of The Rite of Spring with Philip Moore, and in a 2008 production of Les Noces at the Barbican and Lincoln Center, New York. Andrew’s partnership with flautist Emily Beynon led to their Hyperion recording of the complete works for flute and piano by the French composers Les Six, and they have also given trio recitals with cellist Paul Watkins at the Purcell Room and the BBC Chamber Music Proms. Emily and Andrew have appeared at the Edinburgh International Festival and played Wigmore Hall in December 2008.

Andrew has worked with violinist Sarah Chang in Britain and Ireland, and performed with cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras at many of the major European halls. His piano quartet Touchwood released its first CD, of works by Chausson and Saint-Saens, in 2000, and this was subsequently chosen as CD of the Month by the Daily Telegraph. He won second prize at the Geneva International Piano Competition in 1990 and has since made solo tours of South Africa, South America and the U.S., and has given numerous recitals at the Purcell Room and Wigmore Hall. He performed the solo part in Messiaen’s Oiseaux Exotiques under Mark Wigglesworth at Snape Maltings.

Andrew read English at Clare Colleg