Verdi Requiem

Conductor - Christopher Herrick

Tonight is Christopher’s final concert with Twickenham Choral after 50 years.

He began his conducting career in the early 1960s while an organ scholar at Exeter College, Oxford, where he held the Parry/Wood Organ Scholarship. Here, he read for an Honours Degree in Music (MA), also assuming the role of Director of Music of the Chapel Choir and conducting the Exonian Singers and Orchestra. After Oxford, he secured a Boult Scholarship at the Royal College of Music, broadening his musical horizons to include the harpsichord and to study conducting with Sir Adrian Boult.

Christopher’s early career was at various Church of England establishments: from 1964 to 1967 he was Organist and Choirmaster at St Mary’s Primrose Hill in north London, before moving to St Paul’s Cathedral as assistant organist from 1967 to 1974.

In 1974 he moved from St Paul’s to Westminster Abbey, the same year that he auditioned for Twickenham Musical Society (see later). His Westminster Abbey days were marked by royal and state occasions, over 200 solo recitals on the Abbey organ, and the release of an album ‘Organ Fireworks’ in 1984 with Hyperion Records, which heralded his solo career as an international concert organist.

This new chapter saw Christopher touring the globe, recording extensively, notably the ‘Organ Fireworks’ and ‘Organ Dreams’ series as well as the complete organ works of Bach and Buxtehude for Hyperion. Since 1984, Christopher has dedicated himself to performance, recording nearly 50 CDs, as well as broadcasting for the BBC and many overseas radio stations – but always working round the Choir’s weekly rehearsals wherever possible. His solo organ performances are accessible on various platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Hyperion Records and YouTube.

Back to autumn 1974: after a rigorous series of interviews and an audition by the choir, Christopher took over as conductor of Twickenham Musical Society, as the choir was then called. For his first concert, the choir performed Gerald Finzi’s In Terra Pax and Haydn’s Nelson Mass. The secretary at the time wrote in her report to a committee meeting in January 1975: ‘the choir had given one concert under his baton and this had confirmed their confidence in Mr Herrick; it was hoped that he had no regrets about having accepted the job.’

Christopher’s half-century with the choir has been characterised by steady improvements coupled with judicious innovations, such as the policy of performing works in their original language. The choir has grown in size as well as in ability and reputation. For 22 of those years Christopher was musical director of both Twickenham Choral Society (as it had become) and Whitehall Choir, when several joint concerts were given – at Westminster Abbey, Guildford Cathedral and the Royal Albert Hall.

For a dozen years until the pandemic Christopher also directed the choir at the Brandenburg Spring and Autumn Choral Festivals at St Martin-in-the- Fields; and from the 1990s Christopher has led the choir on tour in Europe usually every two years.

The choir has performed works by living composers and often in the presence of the composer, for example Naji Hakim’s Gloria, Paul Spicer’s Easter Oratorio, Roxanna Panufnik’s Wild Musick, Robin Holloway’s The Spacious Firmament and On a Drop of Dew; and The Burning Heavens, An Old Belief and Jazz Cantata, all commissioned from Iain Farrington.

The choir is indebted to Christopher for his superb leadership and unwavering dedication to the choir.

Rebecca Hardwick - Soprano

Rebecca read Music at the University of York, before studying at the Royal College of Music. She then completed the Opera Works course at English National Opera, and was an Apprentice with the Monteverdi Choir 2014-2015.

Recent operatic highlights include Isabella in L’inganno Felice (Rossini, Wexford Festival Opera), Belinda (cover) in Dido’s Ghost (Dunedin Consort), First Bridesmaid in Le nozze di Figaro (Royal Opera House Covent Garden), Victorian in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Will Todd, Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House), and Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos. She performed in the ensemble for the world premiere of Sciarrino’s ‘Venere e Adone’ at Staatsoper Hamburg, and a number of productions with Bergen National Opera, including Wagner’s ‘Parsifal’. Her recent concert appearances include Dyson’s ‘Quo Vadis’ at the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford Cathedral, Haydn’s ‘Creation’ in the Southern Cathedrals Festival in Salisbury Cathedral, and Handel’s ‘Messiah’ in Tewkesbury Abbey. Rebecca has also sung Handel’s ‘Messiah’ with the CBSO at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, Verdi’s ‘Requiem’ with the English Festival Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, and Howells’ ‘Hymnus Paradisi’ with the British Sinfonia in Gloucester Cathedral.

As an ensemble singer, Rebecca appears internationally and on multiple recordings with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras, and was nominated by Sir John Eliot Gardiner for the Joaninha award. She is a Guest Artist with the Edvard Grieg Kor in Bergen, Norway, performing a series of concerts conducted by Ed Gardner.

Rebecca is an advocate for contemporary repertoire, and has performed Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire at the RCM, Stockhausen’s ‘In the sky I am walking’ in Germany and the UK, Thomas Adès’ ‘Five Eliot Landscapes’ and ‘Life Story’ at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, studying György Kurtág’s ‘Kafka Fragments’.

Claudia Huckle - mezzo-soprano

Anglo-German contralto Claudia Huckle, praised as a ‘marvel in Mahler with perfect technique’ (BBC Music Magazine), was a Grand Final Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the first female recipient of Operalia’s Birgit Nilsson Prize for singing Wagner.

Current season highlights include Dritte Dame Die Zauberflöte at the Edinburgh International Festival; Rossini Stabat Mater with the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder; 1st Maid Elektra with the Bergen Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko; her debut at the Bayerischer Staatsoper as The Innkeeper in Boris Godunov; Galatea in Aci, Galatea e Polifemo for the London Handel Festival; 1st Norn Götterdämmerung with the LPO and Vladimir Jurowski; and Verdi Requiem at Cadogan Hall in London.

Claudia’s notable concert appearances include Mozart Requiem at the 2021 BBC Proms; Beethoven Missa Solemnis with the Rouen Philharmonic Orchestra; Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the RPO, LPO and RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra; Bach St Matthew Passion with the Dunedin Consort and on tour with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. She has sung Handel’s Messiah with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and Trevor Pinnock, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC.

Performances of Mahler include Symphony No. 2 with the Boston Philharmonic; Symphony No. 3 with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia; Symphony No. 8 for her 2018 BBC Proms debut; Kindertotenlieder with the BBCSSO; and Rückert Lieder with the Britten Sinfonia and the RSNO.

Dean Power - Tenor

Following nine years as an ensemble member at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Irish tenor Dean Power is firmly establishing himself as a solo guest artist on the international stage. Dean’s recent highlights have included singing the role of Graf Elemer Arabella for his house debuts at both the Teatro Real, Madrid and Opernhaus Zürich, his company debut at the Salzburger Festspiele as Gherardo Gianni Schicchi and Venditore Il Tabarro in Christof Loy’s new production of Il Trittico, creating the role of Gary in the world premiere of The First Child by Donnacha Dennehy and Enda Walsh for Irish National Opera, his house debut at Opéra de Lille as Snout A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a new production by Laurent Pelly, and joining The Dudamel Foundation and Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra to sing Jaquino in a unique semi-staged performance of Fidelio under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel; a performance created especially for both deaf and hearing audiences.

William Thomas - Bass

A graduate of the Opera Course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and recipient of a number of major awards, British bass William Thomas is fast making a name for himself as one of today’s most promising young singers. He was a member of the Harewood Artists programme at English National Opera 2021-2022 and is a BBC New Generation Artist 2021-2023.

The 2023/24 season sees William sing Hobson in a new production of Peter Grimes in his debut at Teatro alla Scala, Milan and make his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Colline La bohème. Highlights on the concert platform include Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Hallé Orchestra/Sir Mark Elder and Verdi’s Requiem with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ryan Wigglesworth.

He has also sung at the Wiener Staatsoper, the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival, English National Opera, Garsington Opera, the Grange Festival and for the Opéra de Rouen Normandie. Future seasons see him return to the Royal Opera and the Glyndebourne Festival and make debuts at Oper Köln and the Bayerische Staatsoper.

On the concert platform he has appeared at the Salzburg Festival with Camerata Salzburg/Manfred Honeck and with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique /Dinis Sousa, at the BBC Proms with the Britten Sinfonia/David Bates, the Edinburgh Festival with The English Concert/John Butt and with the London Symphony Orchestra/François-Xavier Roth and the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra/Phillip von Steinacker.