The New International Chamber Ensemble return to Hornsea

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Originally published at: https://hornseacommunitynews.uk/arts/andrew-powis-returns-to-hornsea/

Hornsea Music Society is looking forward to welcoming the New International Chamber Ensemble (NICE) back for the final concert of the season. The Society’s chairman, Roberta Loades says “When NICE came to play for us 18 months ago, we had a wonderful evening. There was such a nice atmosphere, and we heard some unusual lively music.” NICE is a flexible collective of musicians from diverse backgrounds, which emerged as an initiative of professional musicians in Hull and East Yorkshire. They aim to promote old and new music, filling a gap in the local music scene and giving the players an opportunity to play something a little different. Rather than being a small group of regular players who pick repertoire for a certain combination of instruments, NICE select the music they want to play for each engagement, and then organise which of them will take part. This method has several advantages, including being able to tailor the programme to suit the occasion and giving them a much broader range of music to choose from than most groups. It also means that they are not dependant on individual schedules, which is an advantage for such a talented group. For example, oboist as Hana Drabkove is currently touring Austria with the Brno City Theatre Orchestra from the Czech Republic. Since their last visit to Hornsea in November 2016, NICE have added some string players. They will be joining in to play works by Mozart, Saint Saens, Rachmaninov, and Janacek, amongst others. The concert is on Saturday 24th March, starting at 7.30 pm. Tickets are £10 each and are available from The Town House in Newbegin, Hornsea, or the Tourist Information Centre in Beverley. Accompanied children are admitted free of charge. The next date for your diary is Saturday 21st April, when Hornsea Choir will give a fund raising concert for the Society at the United Reformed Church, starting at 7.30 pm. The Society aims to keep ticket prices affordable, while continuing to put on high quality concerts, so it is important to stage fund raising events like this. The proceeds will go towards the costs of the 2018/19 concert season.

Andrew Powis returns to Hornsea (Feb 2018)

The Hornsea Music Society is approaching the end of its 2017/18 season now. The next concert welcomes back Andrew Powis.

Andrew is a graduate of Bangor University where he was awarded the Eric Morris Memorial prize for outstanding performance upon graduation. As part of the opera group at Bangor and York Opera among others, Andrew has sung the roles of Don Curzio (Le Nozze di Figaro, Mozart), Nemorino (L’elisir D’amore, Donizetti), Tamino (Die Zauberflöte, Mozart), Alfred (Die Fledermaus, Strauss), Fenton (in an abridged version of Falstaff, Verdi) and Mendel in Eric Zeisl’s opera, Hiob. More recently, he has been an integral part of Anne Williams-King’s North Wales Opera Studio where he has performed scenes from a wide range of operas. Andrew has been invited to perform in many concerts as a soloist, including Britten’s Saint Nicolas, Handel’s Messiah, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle, as well as Mozart’s Requiem at Morley College in London.

Andrew was part of the prestigious Glyndebourne Academy 2015 and is currently studying a postgraduate course in Vocal Performance at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland under the tutelage of Iain Paton.

Future engagements include realising the role of Ricardo in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, a concert of operatic scenes at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod with NWOS and a residency with Opera Bamba in Glasgow. Andrew says he is proud and excited to be returning to perform for Hornsea Music Society.

Catherine Strachan was born in Aberdeen. She studied modern and baroque cello at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the University of York. She has performed with several period instrument ensembles, such as La Serenissima, Yorkshire Baroque Soloists and Ludus Baroque, and worked as a freelance cellist with various groups around the UK. Catherine teaches cello and violin (and occasionally viola and double bass) in York, and is also a tutor at the Saturday Music School of Leeds College of Music.

Andrew will be accompanied by Frank James, who is no stranger to audiences in Hornsea. A visit from him always makes for an interesting programme.

The concert is on Saturday 24th February, starting at 7.30pm. Tickets are £10 each, and are available from The Town House in Newbegin, Hornsea, or the Tourist Information Centre in Beverley. Accompanied children are admitted free of charge. The final concert of the season sees the return of another popular act, the New International Chamber Ensemble (NICE) on Saturday 24th March.