TRIUMPHANT RETURN FOR PRIOR PARK ALUMNUS

03 Jun 2014

Local soprano Emily Bradley returned to Prior Park College to perform in Haydn’s Nelson Mass, the highlight of Friday evening’s summer concert, directed by Roland Robertson.

Also featured in the concert were the first movement of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony and the premiere of the Year 12 student Alex Butt’s The Moonlit Ocean. In the beautiful location of the College’s own on-site Chapel the audience enjoyed warm orchestral sounds from a combination of College students and professional musicians.

Emily brought verve and coloratura to her performance of the dramatic, even theatrical, Haydn masterpiece. The opening Kyrie was executed perfectly and was perfectly complemented by choral outbursts and the solo voices of Stephen Harvey (alto), Paul Badley (tenor) and Christopher Sheldrake (bass) as the Mass unfolded. Emily developed her singing as a pupil at Prior Park, guided by College peripatetic teacher Alicia Carroll, and is currently completing her studies with Kathleen McKellar Ferguson at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. She enjoyed her first opera experience at Prior Park College when she took part in the school’s version of Don Giovanni, and she first came to prominence when she starred as Maria in the College production of West Side Story. Since 2011, Emily has performed with the Garden Opera Company and will next spend a year in Germany to expand her repertoire. She was delighted to return to the Chapel at Prior Park College and delighted those privileged to enjoy Roland Robertson’s presentation of this joyous, explosive and exuberant Haydn work – a piece representative of the rich musical tradition of Prior Park College.

The Bath International Festival “Party in the City” will see events in the Prior Park Chapel on Friday 16 May at 7.00pm and the College’s Big Band will perform in The Parade Gardens that night. The summer brings a garden opera and the Chapel Choir will sing Evensong in Worcester Cathedral.