Bach
B Minor Mass

Bach’s “great mass” was never performed in its entirety during his lifetime or indeed for many years after. This monumental and profoundly religious work incorporates elements from compositions that span many years of Bach’s career - developed and refined during his last years to form a Baroque jewel, perhaps the last music on which he worked before his death in 1750. From the majestically solemn opening Kyrie to the celebratory blaze of trumpets and drums that concludes the final Dona nobis pacem, Bach’s music expresses the full range of human emotions - from intense sadness to great joy and zest for life.

This large-choir performance maintains the tradition that introduced Bach’s music to a wide public in the 19th century. Under the direction of David Gibson, Southampton Philharmonic Choir performs with an attention to detail aimed at bringing out Bach’s complex musical lines. The New London Sinfonia play on modern instruments in a style influenced by Baroque performance techniques. Together we will make a full-bodied, joyous sound to fill the beautiful and atmospheric space of Winchester Cathedral.

Southampton Philharmonic Choir first performed the Mass in B Minor in 1930, in St Mary’s Church, Southampton. St Mary’s Church was badly damaged during the Blitz, and fifty years ago in 1956, the choir again performed the work during the church’s restoration celebrations.

Jeni Bern
Soprano

Born in Glasgow, Jeni graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and from the opera course of the Royal College of Music. On the concert platform, Jeni has sung the Teixera Te Deum with Harry Christophers and The Sixteen in Macao, Cupid King Arthur with Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort in the Bergen Festival, with Trevor Pinnock in the Stour Festival, with the Bach Choir and Sir David Willcocks, Haydn's Creation in Spain with Sir Neville Marriner, Messiah with Rudi Lutz in Switzerland, the Beethoven Missa Solemnis and the Bruckner Te Deum, a UK tour of Vivaldi by Candlelight, the UK première of Michael Torke’s Book of Proverbs with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Belinda Dido & Aeneas for the Israeli Chamber Orchestra, and with countless choral societies throughout the UK. Most recently, Carmina Burana for RSNO and The Creation with Nicholas Kraemer and the SCO. She has also appeared on television as Ann Trulove in the series Of Beauty and Consolation with the Dutch Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vredenburg, Utrecht; for BBC1 Scotland. She has broadcast for BBC Radio 3 & 4 and recorded for Naxos. Her CD of Handel and Purcell with Crispian Steele Perkins for Carlton achieved widespread critical acclaim. Recent recordings include: The Divan of Moses Ibn-Ezra by Castelnuovo Tedesco for Somm Records and Haydn’s Stabat Mater with Christ Church Cathedral Choir. Her stage roles have included The Guardian of the Threshold Die Frau ohne Schatten, Heavenly Voice Palestrina, Barbarina Le Nozze di Figaro and Blumenmädchen Parsifal for the Royal Opera House; Amor Orpheo and Eurydice for ENO; La Princesse L’Enfant et les Sortilèges for Opera North; Amor Orphée et Eurydice for WNO; Jano Jenufa for GFO; Susanna The Marriage of Figaro for English Touring Opera; Christa The Makropoulos Case for Scottish Opera Go Round; the title role Deidamia and Sigismondo Arminio for the London Handel Festival, Atalanta Serse for the Early Opera Company, Elissa Tolomeo with Nicholas Kraemer; Narcissa Philemon und Baucis (Haydn) with Trevor Pinnock, Dalinda Ariodante in the Covent Garden Festival; Adina L’Elisir d’Amore in Cambridge. Recent engagements: Yum-Yum The Mikado and Sophie Rosenkavalier at ENO, Oscar Un Ballo in Maschera for Opera Zuid and a recording of Edward Joseph Collins Hymn to the Earth with the RSNO. Current season/future plans: Mabel The Pirates of Penzance for ENO, Musetta La Bohème for Opera Zuid, Teutile Motezuma (Vivaldi ) in de Doelen, Rotterdam, Susanna The Marriage of Figaro and Gretel Hansel and Gretel (in concert) for Opera North. She recently stepped in at the eleventh hour to sing Zdenka Arabella at the Théâtre du Châtelet to great critical acclaim.

Rebecca Outram
Soprano

Rebecca Outram started her musical life as a pianist – it was only on joining the chapel choir of Keble College, Oxford that she discovered her voice and her passion for singing. On leaving Oxford Rebecca went on to study music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, since when she has built up an impressive career in a variety of musical fields.

She is constantly in demand as a solo consort artist, and as such has been a founding member of two of the more recent Gramophone Award winning period vocal ensembles of this country; namely The Cardinall’s Musick and The Clerk’s Group. She also sings with most of the other well-known groups in this field, including The Gabrielli Consort.

With The Sixteen Rebecca has been a soloist at the Salisbury Festival in Vivaldi’s Gloria and Handel’s Dixit Dominus. She performed Couperin’s Lecons de Ténèbres with The King’s Consort at the Wigmore Hall and the Nuremberg Festival, and she is in the process of recording Monteverdi sacred music with Robert King and Hyperion Records. She also sang Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with the King’s Consort the Bath Festival (“a fine Belinda” – The Independent).

She is a regular soloist with the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral, most recently performing Haydn’s Nelson and Harmonie Masses. With the Lufthansa Festival at London’s St John’s, Smith Square she performed Handel’s L’Allegro with Ivor Bolton (“light-filled soprano” – The Times), and with the London Handel Festival, Esther, in London and Norway.

Past concerts also include Bach’s Christmas Oratorio conducted by Sir David Willcocks, a recording of Bach Motets with The Hilliard Ensemble and Bach’s B Minor Mass in Barcelona. Rebecca made her solo debut at last year’s BBC Proms, singing Monteverdi’s Vespers with The King’s Consort (“outstanding” – The Observer) and has appeared recently with The Gabrielli Consort performing Purcell’s The Fairy Queen.

Alexandra Sherman
Mezzo soprano

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Alexandra studied piano in Jerusalem and singing in Melbourne, Australia and at the Royal College of Music, London. She was the winner of the Vocal Category of the ABC Young Performer of the Year Award with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, broadcast nationally from the Sydney Opera House in 1997 and of the Melbourne Welsh Male Voice Choir Singer of the Year competition.

Alexandra appears regularly in concert and recital in both Australia and the UK. She has sung Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer and the 2nd Symphony, with both the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, Berlioz Les Nuits d’Eté, and Elgar’s Sea Pictures. She has also performed widely with choral societies in repertoire including Bach’s St. John and St. Matthew Passion, Elijah, Messiah, B Minor Mass, the Verdi Requiem, the Mozart Requiem, the Vivaldi Gloria and Beatus Vir. In Australia, she has broadcast on 3MBS and the ABC-FM Young Australia programme, as well as on the Russian and Hebrew programmes on SBS radio.

Recent engagements include a recital with acclaimed pianist Geoffrey Tozer in the Mahler Festival in Melbourne, where Alexandra sang Das Lied von der Erde, Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen, 5 Rückert Lieder and Des Knaben Wunderhorn, with the New Monash Orchestra, Elijah in York Minster, Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Pergolesi Stabat Mater (both in London and in Melbourne, where she also recorded the work), Elgar’s Music Makers in Salisbury Cathedral, and a programme of Russian songs to celebrate the bicentenary of the poet Alexander Pushkin both in Wales and at St. John’s Smith Square, London.

Recent engagements: Dryad Ariadne auf Naxos at the Britten-Pears School, Wood Nymph Rusalka, Third Lady The Magic Flute for Opera North, Glyndebourne, St. John Passion with The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Mendelssohn Elijah, Elgar Music Makers, Schubert Ab Mass, Beethoven Missa Solemnis, Olga Eugene Onegin in a concert, her début at Batignano as Pomona in J.S. Bach’s Eolo Calmato and a tour of the Bach Magnificat in Spain, the Netherlands and France with Christopher Hogwood, de Falla El Amor Brujo and Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky in Spain; a recording of Messiah in Australia with Cantillation and Antony Walker.

Current season/future plans: A recital in the Wigmore Hall, Second Secretary Nixon in China for ENO.

Paul Badley
Tenor

Paul has performed as a soloist with many of today’s leading conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Richard Hickox, Seiji Ozawa, Christopher Hogwood, Trevor Pinnock and Robert King.

His oratorio roles, performed regularly with choral societies throughout Great Britain, is exceptionally wide – over fifty works – ranging from all the standard works of Bach and Handel through to Verdi Requiem and twentieth century repertoire. Recent concerts include performances at the Fishguard Festival and the Three Choirs Festival.

Paul has a repertoire of over thirty operatic roles and has recently made his debut in the roles of Tonio La fille du Regiment, Jenik Bartered Bride, Benedict Beatrice and Benedict, Fenton Merry Wives of Windsor and the title role of Gounod’s Faust. In 2005 he also revisited the roles of Alfredo La Traviata and Don Ottavio Don Giovanni at festivals throughout Ireland and at the Bermuda Festival. Paul has also created the role of Michael in a new work, The Perfect Picnic, for Opera on the Run which toured throughout England. He also took part in an opera gala in Barbados and sang on a Baltic cruise!

Recordings include the title role in Ken Robert’s opera Mr Butterfly, Percy Grainger Part Songs with Richard Hickox and Mozart’s Requiem with Tenebrae and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Paul has recently recorded Rachmaninov’s Vespers with Tenebrae and The Journey with the consort Opus Angelicanum.

Simon Gallear
Baritone

Simon’s musical career began at the age of eight as a chorister in Winchester Cathedral where he sang under David Hill. From there he went on to take up a major music scholarship at Bedales School to study piano with Dennis Lee, as well as French horn and singing. In 1997 he was awarded a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama as a principal study singer to study with Ian Kennedy.

Simon has established himself as a successful consort baritone, singing with many groups including Sarum Consort, Florilegium and Les Arts Florissants, with whom he performed the first posthumous performance of Lully’s opera, Thésée. Solo engagements have included Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion, Haydn’s Creation and St. Nicholas Mass, Fauré’s Requiem and Rossini’s Petite Messe Solonelle. Future engagements include three recitals of European song in Winchester Cathedral, Haslemere and Chawton, a programme of Mozart with the Guildford Choral Society, and Christus in Bach’s St Matthew Passion.

Since 2001, he has been a bass lay clerk in Winchester Cathedral Choir with whom he has performed throughout Europe and the USA, and recorded for Decca, Hyperion and Herald. Engagements with the Cathedral Choir have included concerts in the Göttinger Händel Gesellschaft, the Salzburger Festspiele with Sir Roger Norrington, and numerous broadcasts on Radio 3.

Simon lives in Winchester with his wife Caroline, with whom he is expecting their first child in September.