Njabulo Madlala – baritone
William Vann – piano
Njabulo Madlala was born in Durban, South Africa. In 2002 he won a scholarship to study at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama for graduate and postgraduate studies. He went on to study for a further year at the Cardiff International Academy of Voice with Dennis O’Neill.
Among his accolades Njabulo is the winner of the 2010 Kathleen Ferrier Award, 2012 Singers Section Final of the Royal Overseas League Competition, the 2012 Lorna Viol Memorial Prize, the Royal Overseas League Trophy for the most outstanding musician from overseas and Standard Bank Young Artist Award for 2014.
Highlights in recent seasons include his main stage debut at the Royal Opera House in Shostakovich’s The Nose, Schaunard La bohème and Bartolomeo Il furioso all’isola di San Domingo both for English Touring Opera, his Norwegian debut in Orlando Gough’s Voices and Votes for the Bergen National Opera, and a series of Gershwin Concerts for Raymond Gubbay, on tour. In the current season Njabulo will perform a concert of Porgy & Bess in Moscow and further ahead makes his debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra, English National Opera and the Dutch National Opera.
Njabulo and William Vann, Artistic Director of the Pizza Express Art Song series and his regular recital partner, perform a wonderful selection of repertoire from around the world. French, German and English art songs by Henri Duparc, Robert Schumann, Richard Strauss, Roger Quilter and Ralph Vaughan Williams will be heard alongside a selection of opera arias, American spirituals and folk songs from Njabulo’s South African homeland.
Programme:
O Mistress Mine; Go, Lovely Rose; Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal – Roger Quilter
Liebesbotschaft; Wandrers Nachtlied; Rastlose Liebe – Franz Schubert
Let Beauty Awake; The Roadside Fire; Linden Lea – Ralph Vaughan Williams
Die Lotosblume; Dein Angesicht; Stille Tränen – Robert Schumann
—interval—
A selection of South African songs