Singing for veterans is something close to my heart. I will be travelling to Normandy next week for various ceremonies to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. These include British, French, and Canadian ceremonies in Caen, Colleville-Montgomery, Ranville, Bayeux, Beny sur Mer, Ver sur Mer and Grangues.
Please check my social media for stories, videos, and photographs as the week progresses.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the Voorschoten Chamber Choir, composer Nico Philip Hovius was commissioned to write a secular oratorio based on the legend of the flying Dutchman.
I am, perhaps wickedly, delighted to be singing the role of the she-devil Luci Fer, who seduces Captain Barend Fokke into a pact which ultimately brings him disaster. It’s a beautiful composition, both fresh and accessible.
The role of Fokke will be sung by acclaimed bass Yonathan van den Brink. The Voorschotens Kamerkoor will be conducted by Nico Philipp Hovius and accompanied by the string quintet Ventus Filum and pianist Rob Nederlof.
Saturday 1st June, 20:00, Dorpskerk, Voorschoten, the Netherlands.
For tickets, please click on this link.
Lieselotte and I had a wonderful 2023 touring with various concert programmes, including Fauré, Schubert, and songs of the First World War. On Sunday 26th May, we will host a recital in the Hooglandse Kerk in Leiden, the Netherlands. We will present music by Hahn, Strauss, Brahms, and Britten.
Tickets, costing €17,50 (including a glass of wine) are available via this link.
The parade from Bayeux Cathedral to Bayeux cemetery on 6th June, 2016 (D-day). With the Band of Liberation.
On 19th May I will sing with the Band of Liberation in their fund-raising concert at Leiden’s city hall. The band are travelling to Normandy to support remembrance ceremonies and veterans’ events for the 80th commemoration of the D-Day landings.
Tickets (€12,50 inc. drink) can be reserved via info@marchingbandmanagement.nl
At dawn on 9th April I sang during a ceremony to commemorate the Battle of Arras. We gathered outside the Wellington Tunnels. Around twenty metres below us was a network of tunnels, which was expanded by largely Māori soldiers from the New Zealand tunnellers. Some of the tunnels are open for visitors today. Over 24,000 allied soldiers and officers sheltered there in 1917 before pouring out at dawn on 9th April in a surprise attack. The battle claimed over 250,000 casualties.
As the ceremony drew to a close, the sun rose and we heard birdsong and the gentle hum of Arras’s morning traffic. A peaceful contrast to the pandemonium and death of 107 years ago.
Last Sunday I sang during a poignant vigil at Vimy Ridge, France. As the sun set, graves stones were lit and we gathered to remember the fallen in the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
The Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917 was the first battle in which all four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force fought together. The large number of Canadian casualties mean that the battle has a significance place in modern Canadian history.
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial at Vimy Ridge has become a place of pilgrimage. The graves remind us of the human cost of war. The forests around the cemeteries, which are riddled with explosives planted over one hundred years ago, remind us of the cost of war on non-human nature.
For more information about the memorial, please visit the Friends of the Canadian Vimy Monument website.