They say:

“Susan Gritton’s … voice is a warm lyric soprano … with a beautiful melting top that shone in limpidly turned phrases. … It was with Fauré’s ‘Le Papillon et la Fleur’ that the earth moved … a full, easy, idiomatic sound with a radiance that outshone everything … exquisite." New York Times

Photo: Tim Cantrell




Photo: Malcolm Crowthers

Saturday 24th January 2009 at 7:30pm at Moor Park School

SUSAN GRITTON, soprano
FIONA CROSS, clarinet
EUGENE ASTI, piano

Schubert: The Shepherd on the Rock
Also to include songs by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Fanny Mendelssohn, Elaine Hugh-Jones, Elgar

SUSAN GRITTON

Winner of the 1994 Kathleen Ferrier Award, she studied Botany at Oxford and London Universities.

Her roles for The Royal Opera, Covent Garden have included Micaela (Carmen), Liù (Turandot), Ismene(Mitridate) and Marenka (The Bartered Bride). She has sung Konstanze (Die entfurung aus dem Serail), Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito), Rodelinda, Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare) and Romilda (Serse) for the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich and Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) and Theodora for the Glyndebourne Festival. Her many roles for ENO have included Countess Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Pamina (Die Zauberflote), Fiordiligi (Cosi fan Tutti) and the Vixen. Elsewhere she has sung Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) for Opéra de Montréal; Marzelline (Fidelio) in Rome and Tytania (A Midsummer Night's Dream) at La Fenice, Venice.

Plans include her operatic debut in Vienna; Romilda at the ENO; Konstanze, Fiordiligi and Blanche (Dialogues des Carmélites) at the Bayerische Staatsoper and Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes) for Opera Australia.

She appears regularly with many of the world’s great orchestras in venues including the Vienna Musikverein, Salzburg Mozarteum, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonie and at the BBC Proms with conductors such as Colin Davis, Harding, Mackerras, Norrington, Rattle and Tate. A Grammy nominated artist, she has recorded prolifically.


Eugene Asti

Eugene Asti studied at the Mannes College of Music, New York with Jeannette Haien where he earned his BMus and MA. Eugene now teaches at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and is Vocal Accompaniment Coordinator at Trinity College of Music. He regularly gives masterclasses both in the UK and abroad.

Much in demand as an accompanist, he has performed with many great artists including Dame Felicity Lott, Dame Margaret Price, Nancy Argenta and Elizabeth Connell, in places such as the Wigmore Hall, the Rome Opera House, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Paris, Madrid, Brussels, Düsseldorf, Vancouver, and New York. He has devised many recital series for St. John’s Smith Square and St. George’s Bristol to mark the anniversaries of various composers such as Brahms, Mendelssohn, Poulenc/Strauss and Robert Schumann, which included recitals by many of today’s leading artists.

Recent recitals include performances at the Barbican (St. Luke’s), Weill Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall) in New York, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Kölner Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Symphony Hall in Birmingham, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussles, the Konserthuset in Stockholm and the Megaron in Athens with the soprano Susanna Andersson. He has also recently performed in the Cheltenham, City of London, Buxton and North Norfolk Music Festivals with Sarah Connolly, Stephan Loges and James Rutherford as well as a performance of the complete Mozart songs in Bordeaux and Nantes with Sophie Karthäuser and Stephan Loges.

Future plans include recitals with Dame Felicity Lott, Sir Willard White, Sarah Connolly, Sophie Karthäuser and Stephan Loges, in various venues in London & Europe. He has devised a recital series to honour the anniversary of Felix Mendelssohn in 2009 for London’s new concert venue King’s Place (which is due to open in autumn 2008), which will include concerts with some of today’s leading recital artists.

Eugene has done much recording work for the BBC, featuring regularly on Radio 3’s “Voices” programme with Sarah Connolly, Sophie Daneman, Rebecca Evans, Susan Gritton, Jared Holt, Christine Rice, Stephan Loges, Kate Royal, and James Rutherford.

His numerous recordings on disc include three volumes of songs and duets by Felix Mendelssohn with Sarah Connolly, Sophie Daneman, Stephan Loges, Mark Padmore and Nathan Berg, songs by Fanny Mendelssohn with Susan Gritton and the complete songs of Clara Schumann with Susan Gritton and Stephan Loges, all for Hyperion, and most recently, a widely acclaimed live recital disc with Sarah Connolly for Signum Records. He recently released a disc of the complete Mozart songs for Cyprès with Sophie Karthäuser and Stephan Loges. Future releases include a disc of Schumann Lieder with Sarah Connolly for Chandos.