picture

Sir john tomlinson

 

3.00pm Sunday,  18 March 2012

 

 

  Britten Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Op.22

  Wolf Drei Gedichte von Michelangelo

  Shostakovich Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarotti, Op.145

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michelangelo

in

Song

 

 

 

 

 

 

with

David Owen Norris - piano

 

 

The performances of legendary operatic bass-baritone Sir John Tomlinson often draw such superlatives as "magnificent", "towering" and "majestic" from the musical press. Born in Lancashire, he gained a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering at Manchester University before winning a scholarship to the Royal Manchester College of Music. He was awarded a C.B.E. in 1997 and knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours of 2005.

 

John Tomlinson has sung regularly with English National Opera since 1974 and with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, since 1977 and has also appeared with all the other leading British opera companies. He sang at the Bayreuth Festival for eighteen consecutive seasons. Other engagements include Geneva, Lisbon, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin (Deutsche Oper and Deutsche Staatsoper), Dresden, Hamburg, Munich, Vienna and Bilbao and the Festivals of Orange, Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg, Edinburgh and the Maggio Musicale, Florence.

 

He has worked with many of the greatest conductors of our time, including Daniel Barenboim, Bernard Haitink, Pierre Boulez, Simon Rattle, Carlo Muti, Colin Davis, Richard Bonynge and Charles Makerras.

 

John Tomlinson has a large concert repertoire and has sung with all the leading British orchestras and in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, France, Spain, Denmark and the USA.

 

David Owen Norris is one of the most innovative and brilliant pianists of our generation, being an authority and leading performer on early pianos, rare piano concertos (especially those by 20th century English composers), as well as being the pianist of choice for many world-class singers. He has recently performed fortepiano concertos in Toronto and Yale; accompanied David Wilson-Johnson, Philip Langridge and Sir John Tomlinson; and received a Gramophone recommendation for his new CD recording of Montague Phillips Piano Concertos with the BBC Concert Orchestra.