News

Opera, January 2022

English Touring Opera

Focus on Amadigi with Harriet Eyley, Rebecca Afonwy-Jones and James Laing

Josquin: Mille Regretz with Ella Taylor and Jorge Navarro Colorado

Grange Park Opera

Owen Wingrave with Ross Ramgobin

L’heure espagnole with Ross Ramgobin

BBC Radio 3

Schumann Plus with Alessandro Fisher

Life VICTORIA, Barcelona

Julien Van Mellaerts in recital with Simon Lepper

L’Orchestre de Chambe de Genève

Copland Old American Songs & Shostakovich Symphony No. 14 with Anush Hovhannisyan

Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Schubert (arr. Brahms) Three Songs with Felix Kemp

Tait Tuesdays At Home

Massenet Élégie with Catherine Carby

Resonus Classics’ new recording of Sir Malcolm Arnold’s The Dancing Master, with a cast including Catherine Carby, Fiona Kimm and Mark Wilde, has been nominated for a 2021 BBC Music Magazine Best Opera Recording Award. This Summer, these artists will feature in a new production of the work presented at the Buxton Festival in association with Red Squirrel Opera.

During December, Ross Ramgobin was featured in the title role of Grange Park Opera’s new film of Owen Wingrave, as well as appearing in The Royal Opera’s Christmas Concert as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte and in Opera Holland Park’s Christmas Concert, all available for streaming over the Christmas period. A feature interview appears in the January / February issue of Opera Now.

“Ross Ramgobin finds a fierce nobility in the title role that pulls the threads together.”
Neil Fisher - The Times

“Ross Ramgobin, rapidly emerging as a fine singing actor, was sweet, funny and touching as Mozart’s Papageno.”
Tim Ashley – The Guardian

“Ramgobin has been another Christmas bonus – heartbreaking in Grange Park’s Owen Wingrave and partying with gusto in Opera Holand Park’s Christmas bonzanza.”
Claudia Pritchard – Culture Whisper

To reflect the plight of New Zealand musicians in London during lockdown, Julien Van Mellaerts has organised and curated Whānau: Voices of Aotearoa, Far from home, a selection of New Zealand, Māori and Pasifika songs. Recorded at London’s Royal Albert Hall last month and now available to watch on YouTube, the project was devised to help those artists able neither to return home nor to work during the pandemic. Those featured additionally include Marlena Devoe. The concert can also be heard on Radio New Zealand Concert. You can also hear an interview with Julien Van Mellaerts as he reflects on his own experience during the pandemic.

Resonus Classics’ recording of Sir Malcolm Arnold’s The Dancing Master with a cast including Catherine Carby, Fiona Kimm and Mark Wilde has been selected by BBC Music Magazine as amongst “The best opera recordings released in 2020 so far,” as Editor’s Choice for November 2020 by Gramophone and as a Sunday Times Album of the Week.

You can hear The Dancing Master broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 11 December 2020 as part of the Afternoon Concert.

Also selected by BBC Music Magazine was the Royal Opera’s release on Opus Arte Blu Ray / DVD of Die Walküre with a cast including Alwyn Mellor and Catherine Carby.

Alwyn Mellor and Lee Bisset sang Brünnhilde and Sieglinde in the Singapore premiere of Die Walküre with the Orchestra of the Music Makers. You can watch the performed streamed on 1 November at 1700 (GMT +8).

James Black Management is delighted to have been elected to membership of the Association Europénne des Agents Artistiques / European Association of Artist Managers (AEAA).

James Black Management is also pleased to announce membership of the Opera Managers Association International.

James Black Management is sad to announce the death on 10 September of much loved baritone Adrian Clarke. He was a joy to work with, full of character and love for his art, and also a most delightful man with a gleeful sense of humour and a nose for a good glass of red. 

Our thoughts are with Sarah Pring and his family at this time.