Roderick Williams baritone
Carolyn Sampson soprano
Joseph Middleton piano

Sounds and Sweet Airs

Shakespeare in Song – a prologue, five acts and an epilogue

Songs by Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, Haydn, Poulenc, Britten, Sullivan, Ireland , Vaughan Williams, Gurney, Parry, Bridge, Coleridge- Taylor, Roderick Williams and others.

Roderick Williams is one of the UK’s most sought-after baritones and is constantly in demand on the concert platform and in recital, performing repertoire from the baroque to world premieres. He is also an established composer and has recently taken up the role of Composer in Association of the BBC Singers. In 2016 he won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Singer of the Year award, and in June 2017 was awarded an OBE for services to music. He also performed at the Coronation of King Charles III in 2023. He is president of Malvern Concert Club.

Carolyn Sampson is equally at home on concert and opera stages, enjoying successes in the UK and worldwide. She is a regular at international festivals such as the BBC Proms and Aldeburgh, and has featured as soloist with the Boston, Cincinnati, Detroit, and San Francisco Symphonies, amongst many others. As a recitalist she has appeared at Wigmore Hall, at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, and Oxford International Song Festival, Leeds Lieder and Aldeburgh Festivals and abroad, and in opera for ENO, Glyndebourne, Scottish Opera, Opéra de Paris and many others.

Joseph Middleton specialises in the art of song accompaniment and chamber music, and enjoys fruitful partnerships with many internationally established singers including Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Sarah Connolly, Fatma Said, Louise Alder, Carolyn Sampson and Roderick Williams. Recent seasons have taken him to Wigmore Hall, Vienna Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw, Zürich Tonhalle, Tokyo’s Oji Hall and New York’s Alice Tully Hall, amongst many others. He regularly appears at festivals worldwide, including the BBC Proms, and programmes his own series for BBC Radio 3. He is Director of Leeds Lieder and a Professor at the Royal Academy of Music