Performances

William Drakett studied singing under Prof. Konrad Jarnot at the Robert Schumann Conservatoire in Düsseldorf, following organ and harpsichord studies at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. His vocal studies have been further enriched by masterclasses with artists including Brigitte Fassbaender, Juliane Banse, Hans Eijsackers, Neal Davies, Eric Schneider, Christianne Stotijn & Henk Neven.

​

William has a particular love of the art song repertoire, and enjoys collaborating with pianists including Hans Eijsackers, Benjamin Mead, Edward Picton-Turbervill, Simon Carrey & Reinild Mees. He now lives in Wells where he is a Vicar Choral in the choir of Wells Cathedral, and continues his vocal studies privately with John Evans.

Over thirty years ago Simon began piano performance as a child prodigy in his hometown Conservatory in Tarbes, France.  He then studied in Toulouse and Boulogne-Billancourt under the direction of Hortense Cartier-Bresson.  Alongside the pianoforte he also studied organ, harpsichord and bassoon.  Moving to London he subsequently graduated at the Royal College of Music, where he received his Masters with Distinction in piano performance.  He also holds a Master’s degree from the Paris Conservatoire National Supèrieur de Musique.

Simon has performed as soloist and accompanist in a wide variety of concert halls and music festivals across Europe, notably in France but also in Romania and the UK, including St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the Britten Theatre and the Amaryllis Flemming Concert Hall in London.​​​

Bloomsbury Baroque is an ensemble of some of London’s finest historically informed musicians. They perform on period instruments with a mission to illustrate the cultural life of the eighteenth century – and earlier. Formed to combine the repertoire of High Baroque composers with more local music of the same period, Bloomsbury Baroque has a particular association with Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare, where the actor David Garrick built a ‘retirement project’ in Hampton by the Thames, not far from Hampton Court Palace.  It became a focus for entertainment and rehearsal - regularly involving notable contemporary composers such as Arne and Dibdin.

​

Members of  Bloomsbury Baroque are active in a wide range of musical ventures, reflecting the diversity of London’s current early music scene.  They are performing for us in the Shakespeare in Music Festival both today and tomorrow.  In this recital they concentrate on music relating to Shakespeare and his immediate legacy: Dowland, Morley, Byrd, Handel and Willem de Fesch.

​

Philippa Hyde soprano; Diane Moore baroque violin; William Summers baroque flute and recorder; Ibrahim Aziz bass viol, and Yeo Yat-Soon harpsichord.  

Jennifer Waghorn is a theatre history researcher and musician. Her doctoral thesis explored the original music of Shakespeare’s theatre company and the seventeenth-century composers who worked between the theatre and the court. She has published work on music in seventeenth-century theatrical revivals, Shakespearean actor-musicians, Shakespeare as "corpse and corpus", and the lives of early modern women connected to Shakespeare’s theatre company. She has provided edited music and commentaries for critical editions of early modern plays and has advised on music history for RSC productions since 2018.   She previously worked as a Lecturer for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and currently works for the Birmingham Museums Trust

Founded by Stephen Dodsworth and Tim Raistrick in 1993, the Stratford Chamber Choir quickly established itself as one of the leading small choirs in the country. For over thirty years it has performed concerts and services in its home town, in UK cathedrals including Winchester and Westminster, and on tour in North America and continental Europe. Gifted amateurs working to professional standards, it has featured on BBC Songs of Praise and on Radio 3.

​

Its Festival programme will include the jazz settings of Shakespeare’s words by George Shearing as well as others by Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Cook, R.J.S. Stevens, Henry Bishop, James Walker and John Cook. 

Tamara will sing Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes as well as two short songs from Shakespeare’s plays:  Where the bee sucks, there suck I  and Full Fathom Five thy Father Lies by Purcell.  Richard will sing Who is Sylvia? by Schubert and also Greensleeves - which may or may not have been composed by Henry VIII.  

​

These songs will be accompanied at the piano by Colin Millington, Director of Music at Holy Trinity Church.​