Farlington School Supports Opera Holloway
20 January 2011, 17:41 | Updated: 20 January 2011, 17:55
On Friday 4th February 2011 Farlington School near Horsham be hosting an opera work shop and concert gala.
The workshop will be 9am to 5pm with a gala concert following in the evening from 6.30 – 8.30pm.
Two Old Farlingtonians, Alice Pollock & Caroline Swarbrick, are members of Opera Holloway, a self-funding opera company created by students from Royal Holloway University.
They are doing a workshop with 2 choirs from Farlington - Junior Choir (Years 3 – 6) and Glee Club (Years 7 – 9.)
There will be no ticket sales for the gala concert but the company would be grateful for any donations from the audience to fund their June production. More Details
Opera Holloway
Opera Holloway is an opera company run by students, for students and the public. Our main aim is to provide some of the university’s finest young talent with the opportunity to perform some of the key works of the operatic repertoire. We strive to present the most accessible performances to the widest possible audiences, not only to other students in the university, but also to other members of the community.
Royal Holloway has a great tradition for music making, its chapel choir have recorded much-admired CDs for Hyperion and its alumni boast some of Britain’s most celebrated sopranos. We hope to further boost this tradition by interesting and introducing the talent that comes to this institution to the wonderful world of opera.
In March 2010, we presented our debut performances of scenes from selected operas. The shows were a publicised success, and established a great reputation for the group amongst students, staff and supporters of the university. We even raised over £1000 for the children’s charity Brainwave.
Our next project – Re-creating Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro
Our next exciting project will be a new production of the ever-popular The Marriage of Figaro. The group is proud to present a new English translation of the opera, presented by Opera Holloway Co-Founder and Director Christopher Moon-Little. Through a combination of hard-work, passion and youthful enthusiasm, we hope to breathe new life into this masterpiece. Productions like these are pivotal in the early stages of musician’s careers when experience and exposure to performance are the essential requirements for any future plans. A successful set of rehearsals is already underway and at our current rate of progress the performances promise to be both professional and entertaining. To do something like this requires an enormous amount of preparation and planning but unfortunately it takes a little more than the cast’s endless enthusiasm to make a professional production like this come to life. This is why we need your help.
The Production Team:
Lewis Gaston - Music Director
Lewis is a second year music student at Royal Holloway. His studies trombone with Roger Harvey at the Royal College of Music however his main passion is conducting. He first conducted at Brentwood School, Essex, conducting his own Concertino for Oboe and Orchestra, which he took on tour to Siena, Italy. In March 2010 he conducted Mozart, Verdi, Puccini and Verdi for the Opera Holloway’s debut performances and he is also conducting Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld in November 2010 with Royal Holloway’s Savoy Opera Society.
Christopher Moon-Little - Director Chris is a second year undergraduate studying music. Before coming to university he worked for one of the UK’s top classical music agents, HarrisonParrott Ltd. He has performed in Gilbert and Sullivan and opera in London and The Isle of Skye. His roles include: The Mikado, Strephen (Iolanthe), Marco (Gondoliers), Florian (Princess Ida,) Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro), Valetto (L'incoronazione di Poppea) and Dr Blind (Die Fledermaus). He trained at the Junior Royal Academy of Music and now studies with Graham Titus at Royal Holloway.
