Dangerous Liaisons

featuring
Amanda Pyke (mezzo-soprano)
with Stephen Ostler (piano)
and Peter Baxter (flute)

Mahler, Ives, Richard Strauss

Amanda Pyke studied Music at the University of Newcastle of Tyne and later as a post-graduate at Birmingham Conservatoire.   Whilst at college she performed the roles of Marcellina
(Le Nozze di Figaro) and Mrs Herring (Albert Herring). She currently studies with Pamela Cook. Operatic roles have included Mercedes (Carmen) and Anina (La Traviata) for Co-Opera; Zerlina (Don Giovanni) and Flora (cover, La Traviata) for ETO; Smeton (Anna Bolena) for Opera School Wales; Cyrus (Handel’s Belshazzar) for Newcastle Early Music Festival with Emma Kirkby, Brambilla and Mastrilla (cover, La Perichole) and Francisca (cover, Maria Padilla) for the Buxton Opera Festival, where she gave a recital and sang in several masses.Amanda has taken part in masterclasses with Sarah Connolly (Handel in Oxford series), Aidan Lang (Buxton Opera Festival) and Hans Peter Blockwitz (Britten-Pears School) and has performed throughout the UK as a concert soloist in venues such as Snape Maltings, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Peterborough Cathedral, Milton Keynes Theatre and Bristol RC Cathedral in works including Mahler Resurrection Symphony, Karl Jenkins The Armed Man, Bach B Minor Mass, Elgar Music Makers, John Rutter Feel the Spirit, Mozart Requiem, Tippett A Child of our Time, Vivaldi Gloria and Beatus Vir , Copland In the Beginning, Handel Messiah, Haydn Paukenmesse and ‘Nelson’ Mass and Duruflé Requiem.   Future plans include cameo appearances as Carmen, Rosina (Barber of Seville) and Mallika (Lakmé) for Northampton Festival Opera and Rossini’s Stabat Mater with Bicester Choral Society. 

Although it had not been his original intention, flautist Peter Baxter decided to adopt music as a profession when the Royal College of Music offered him a scholarship in the 1960s. Following three years there, he was awarded a British Council scholarship to further his studies at the Paris Conservatoire. During several years of freelance performing in Britain in the 1970s, Peter played with various Symphony and theatre orchestras, before being appointed to the position of Principal Flute with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra.   Following his return to the UK, Peter left the world of music altogether for a number of years.  However, at a chance meeting with the Director of Music at Wellingborough School, he was persuaded to take on one pupil there in 1985.  Still enjoying the occasional outing as a performer, the bulk of Peter’s time nowadays is taken up with teaching flute and recorder.

Stephen Ostler studied piano with Evelyn Bülow, and later with Guy Jonson at the Royal Academy of Music, London, specialising as an accompanist.  He joined the teaching staff at Wellingborough School in 1966, becoming Director of Music two years later; he remained in this post until 1994, after which he continued as Head of Music in independent schools on the Isle of Wight and in Cambridge.  In 1984 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music for services to music education.  As Chairman of the Wellingborough Arts Association in the 1980s, he was involved in the planning of the annual Wellingborough Festival. In 2003 Peter Baxter and he established an annual series of August Sunday afternoon Chamber Concerts in Wellingborough, featuring professional musicians, as well as some young performers on the threshold of their musical careers.  He operates an internet business (www.ChoralOne.com) supplying Choral Rehearsal Recordings to clients around the world.  When not coping with the latter, he divides his time between performing, adjudicating, and examining for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, for whom recent engagements included extended visits to California, Texas, Bangkok, Cyprus and Hong Kong, and a couple of days in Wolverhampton.

 

Doors open 2.35 pm
Ticket at door: £6.
Season ticket for all four concerts available: £18
Concert lasts 75 minutes; refreshments available afterwards;
Toilet facilities; wheelchair access. Feel free to bring a cushion.