Booking is now open for the Songs of the Somme, the London English Song Festival’s 2016 project. William is Artistic Director of the LESF and will be playing for all the performances.

William has just completed recording his first disc for Albion Records, a disc that will be released in Autumn 2016 and that includes six previously unrecorded songs of Ralph Vaughan Williams, two wonderful rare duets for soprano, baritone, violin and piano and eight songs from the underrated RVW opera The Poisoned Kiss that have been arranged by Adrian Williams. The other performers were Mary Bevan, Jennifer Johnston, Nicky Spence, Johnny Herford and Thomas Gould.

Don’t miss William’s two recitals this week for Kensington and Chelsea Music Society (Wednesday 21 October, Ian Venables birthday concert) and Bedford Music Club (Thursday 22 October, recital with Guy Johnston). Full details in the Diary section.

Aoife Miskelly and Will are through to the final of the 2015 Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition tonight – come along at 6pm to support us! Our slot is at 6.30pm. Full details at the Wigmore Hall website.

Will has just arrived at the Dartington International Summer School where he is looking forward to a week of accompanying the Big Choir and taking rehearsals for the Big Choir Plus.

The flyer for Kingston Choral Society’s concert on 28 March can be viewed here:

Songs of the fleet flyer

View the poster for the Fresh Ayres concert later this month:

William spent Tuesday afternoon filming part of a new documentary on Entartete Musik for Franco-German Arts TV channel Arte with baritone Simon Wallfisch. A fascinating session – watch this space for more information on its release.

Cue newspaper has published a very nice review of Njabulo Madlala and William’s recital on Friday night, part of the South Africa National Arts Festival. The programme will be repeated tonight at 8.30pm.

William was awarded the Accompanist’s Prize at the 2014 Association of English Singers and Speakers competition (www.aofess.org.uk) last night at the Royal College of Music. The three singers prizes (from left to right) went to Alexei Winter, Raphaela Papadakis and Heather Caddick.