Friday, April 16, 2010
Mount Elizabeth Theatre
8:00 PM
From Website:
About Cantabile
Cantabile have been delighting audiences since 1982 with their amazing range of programmes. From a cappella favourites to the sacred music of the last millennium they are outstanding in both Comedy and the Classics. They are supported by thirteen solo albums, over 2,000 live performances and more than 200 TV appearances worldwide.
International Admiration
Musicals in London's West End, Galas aboard Queen Elizabeth 2, Concerts in New York's Carnegie Hall, Opera in the Covent Garden Festival, Jazz with the BBC Big Band, Classical Parodies in front of 40,000 people at the BBC Proms in the Park or customised Cabarets for corporate clients - the Cantabile experience draws gasps of admiration wherever it goes.
Cantabile (pronounced Can - TAH - bih - lay - an Italian musical term meaning 'in singing style') are quite simply one of the world's top vocal groups.
Richard Bryan
Counter-Tenor
Richard's initial music training began at St. Michael's College, Tenbury where he became Head Chorister, and continued at Cambridge University, where he conducted his College Choir and was Honorary Choral Scholar at Jesus and Pembroke Colleges. He also found time to write and perform for the celebrated Footlights Comedy Revue, as well as representing the University at the 110m Hurdles. Whilst at Cambridge he formed CANTABILE, which for the next ten years became his full-time career.
Steven Brooks
Tenor
Excerpt from: Biography by Dr Theo Rettic:
Steven Brooks was only four years old when he was bitten by the music bug. His parents were devastated. How could this happen? Luckily none of the other animals on their farm in Belgium were infected by this bug (except one lonely duck that turned out to be brilliant at tap-dance). So they sent him (Steve, not the duck) to music school, hoping that he would share his story with other children and so find a cure against this horrible noisy bug. Unfortunately this wasn’t a help at all, the bug grew stronger and made him choose the piano as instrument to express his distress. At the age of 12 the doctors decided it would be better for him to enter the Lemmensinstituut (an elite music college) where he would be under constant supervision of some of Belgium’s best musicians. It was here that he wrote his first full-scale musical “Poor Martin!” and the pantomime “Who Knows Where…”
After 5 years “piping-the-organ” he became bored of it and as soon as he received his first prizes in music history/ analysis/theory and sight reading, Steve went for the “smallest” instrument in the universe: “The Human Voice”! “Open your mouth, noise comes out, it’s simple as that”, he thought. He was wrong. Continuing his studies now at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, he focused his training on Opera, Composition, Conducting and Orchestrating. In November 1999 ...he received a phone call from the Flemish Radio Choir to offer him a permanent position as first tenor. In 2005, ... [he found] a tiny ad in a newspaper…: “wanted: classically trained high tenor, with good sense of humour…please bring a piece of music keeping that in mind” “Nah, nothing for me, I don’t have British humour”, Steve thought. “Just stop whining and do the audition!”, the bug yipped in his head.. So Steve went – reluctantly – to the audition and sang the wonderful aria “I never harmed an onion”, by Ralph the dog of the Muppet Show. And he got the job as high tenor with Cantabile…Steve had finally found three other victims infected by the music/comedy bug, and together they will make sure that plenty of other people will get bitten during their concerts, and so spread a world of music and joy.
Mark Fleming
Tenor
Mark was born in Croydon in 1965, and therefore is well acquainted with 60s-concrete buildings. He was delivered in Mayday Hospital and people have been in distress ever since. He attended the 60s-concrete (rebuilt) Trinity School, where he was a member of the prestigious Trinity Boys' Choir. Amongst the many wonderful opportunities that this afforded him were understudying the part of 'A Sprite' in The Magic Flute at English National Opera, conducted by Sir Charles Groves, and playing one of a band of fairies in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream both at the Royal Academy of Music and at the Snape Maltings as part of the Aldeburgh Festival. Away from the supernatural, he was able to show his prowess at nose-picking on camera behind Bing Crosby's head in the great crooner's last TV appearance, which also involved most of Bing's family (including the one who shot JR), plus Twiggy and David Bowie. The nose parts do not unfortunately appear on the video. Furthermore he was caught on Dutch TV both falling asleep in the (long Dutch) sermon and clearly not watching the conducting - these habits have died hard!
Playing the violin, he led the School Orchestra, was a leading member of both Croydon Youth Orchestras and went on to lead his University Orchestra...mostly astray. Surely his favourite moment was leading the School Orchestra having broken his fly in his trousers. He was asked not to enjoy the concert too much - a feat he managed. His version of the violin solo in Grieg's Holberg Suite with the University of East Anglia String Orchestra brings tears to the eyes, and ears. He has a recording, and will not let you hear it.
Michael Steffan
Baritone
Michael Steffan is a founder member of Cantabile. He was born and brought up in Cardiff, then went up to Cambridge, where he read Modern and Mediæval Languages. He subsequently returned to Cardiff to study at the Welsh College of Music and Drama, and continued his vocal training with the eminent German baritone, Gerhard Hüsch and later with Laura Sarti. He has also studied with Hugues Cuénod and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.
Since Cantabile became a full-time concern in 1982, Michael Steffan's CV reads almost identically with that of the group, with whom he has travelled extensively, singing in an enormous variety of prestigious events and venues around the world.
As a soloist outside Cantabile, Michael has sung much of the standard bass and baritone concert and oratorio repertoire, from Handel and Bach to Brahms and Orff. He has also appeared with The Singers Company, and sang the rôle of Æneas in a performance of Dido and Æneas to inaugurate the new theatre at St. Paul's Girls' School in London, before the Queen Mother. On the recital platform he has sung Beethoven, Schumann and Mahler with pianist Malcolm Martineau. In quite a different field, he has written and performed several titles on CDs in the Voices series for the Atlantic 7 label.
Amongst the many highlights of his career with Cantabile he includes being invited to sing privately for Herbert von Karajan, being awarded First prize in the Eurovision International Star Festival, recording a single with Tim Rice and logging the highest-ever performance by a vocal group in a hot-air balloon.
Mike lives between Richmond Park and the River Thames in Mortlake, south-west London, close to the end of the course of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. His two children make mincemeat of him on the tennis court, but he enjoys cooking and gardening and could happily watch someone do either of these for hours on end.
Last Updated on Tuesday, 29 September 2009 20:47