DEBUT returns for their fourth recital at the Royal Opera House of 2019 for what promises to be a wonderful hour of trilling music and fascinating insights into the worlds of both opera and song.
As ever, we look forward to the normal DEBUT format for our recital, we’ll be chatting about the music during the concert as well as meeting guests as you arrive - and encouraging you to come and say hi once the performance ends!
Free admission
Musicians
Hosted by Jon Tester
Katie Coventry mezzo soprano
Carola Krebs cello
Gamal Khamis piano
Programme
Meyerbeer - Nobles seigneurs, salut! from Les Huguenots - Katie & Gamal 4’30
Camille Saint-Saens - The Swan - Carola & Gamal 3’
Rachmaninov - Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14 - Carola & Gamal 7’
Gounod - Que fais-tu blanche tourterelle from Roméo et Juliette - Katie & Gamal 4’30
Faure - Nocturne B major, Op. 33 No. 2 - Gamal 6’
Britten - Tell me the truth about love from Cabaret Songs - Katie & Gamal 5’
David Popper - Hungarian Rhapsody, Op. 68 - Carola & Gamal 8’
Massenet - Elegie - Katie, Carola & Gamal 5’
Biographies
Katie Coventry
mezzo soprano
Scottish Mezzo Soprano, Katie Coventry is an ENO Harewood Artist and this season will sing the roles of Fury 2 in Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus and Kitchen Boy in Rusalka, a co-production with Les Theatres de la Ville de Luxembourg.
As an ENO Harewood Artist, Katie has sung the roles of Cherubino, Shadow Marnie 2 and Marnie (Cover) and Edith, Pirates of Penzance. Other roles include Jennie Hildebrand Street Scene (Teatro Real, Madrid), Annio (Cover) for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Rosette, Manon, Doralice, La Gazzetta, Frau Grubach/Washerwoman in Philip Glass' The Trial and Cherubino and Zerlina (Salzburger Landestheater), Dorabella (Nevill Holt Opera), Ariodante (London Handel Festival), Kate Julian Owen Wingrave and The Fox The Cunning Little Vixen (British Youth Opera) and Mazet La Colombe (West Green House Opera).
In 2017 she graduated from the Royal College of Music International Opera school where she sang the roles of Ramiro La Finta Giardiniera, Hänsel Hänsel und Gretel, Prince Orlofsky Die Fledermaus, Nancy Albert Herring and L’Écureuil and La Chatte L’enfant et les sortilèges.
Katie was a member of the Salzburg Festival Young Singer's Project in 2018, a finalist for the inaugural Grange Festival International Singing Competition, the winner of the 2017 Joaninha Award and was awarded the Worshipful Company of Musicians Silver Medal.
Carola Krebs
cello
Carola Krebs is an Austrian cellist. Carola first studied at the University of Music and Arts in Vienna with Stefan Kropfitsch, then with Rudolf Leopold and Julian Arp at the University of Music and Arts in Graz. She also spent a year at the Conservatoire de Paris under Marc Coppey. Carola completed her Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music in 2018, studying with Alexander Chaushian.
A consummate soloist, Carola gave her solo debut performing the Shostakovitch Cello Concerto in 2010, and recently had her London solo debut with the Southbank Sinfonia playing the Saint-Säens Cello Concerto. She performed the Brahms Double Concerto in Austria in June 2018, with violinist Katharina Dobrovich under the baton of Norbert Pfafflmayer. As a chamber musician, she has given concerts in Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands and Poland. Highlights for the next season is playing Beethoven Triple Concerto and Gulda ́s Cello Concerto with a tour through Austria and Russia.
Carola is a regular participant at numerous festivals, including the Haydn-Tage, Beethoven-Tage, Kulturszene Kottingbrunn, Casalmaggiore International Music Festival, Allegro Vivo Festival, Académie Internationale d’Eté de Nice and Junge Musikfreunde Baden. Carola was offered the “Rotary culture prize 2018”. Carola is one of four sisters, and to the envy of many of us, grew up with a family string quartet.
Gamal Khamis
piano
After gaining a degree in Mathematics from Imperial College London, Gamal Khamis completed his formal musical education at the Royal College of Music. He first performed at the Wigmore Hall at the age of 10, and has since appeared at most of the major U.K. concert hall as a soloist and chamber musician. Having recently returned from a tour of Australia and New Zealand, this year he performs recitals in France, Denmark and Sweden, and at the Flatirons Chamber Music Festival in Colorado, USA.
Alongside the actor Christopher Kent, Gamal is currently developing a new performance entitled "Odyssey - Words and Music of Finding Home", which combines poetry and piano music of the past with specially commissioned works from living poets and composers. Gamal won the Help Musicians UK Award for Accompanists at the Ferrier Awards, and the Collaborative Piano Prize at the Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition in 2017. He is a Samling Artist, Park Lane Group Artist, Concordia Foundation Artist and a member of the Lipatti Piano Quartet. Gamal would like to thank The Carne Trust for their continued generous support.
Previous ROH recital with Kieran Rayner, Lizzie Holmes, Somi Kim & Ben Smith
Founded by soprano Lizzie Holmes in 2015, DEBUT celebrates the UK’s brightest musicians through intimate and alternative classical concerts and events. Their internationally renowned monthly concert series ‘DEBUT at Shoreditch Treehouse’ has showcased over 150 musicians and has been featured in Opera Now and Classical Music Magazine as ‘a great introduction to some of the best talent’.
Recent performers include saxophonist Manu Brazo (BBC Introducing Artist); baritone Julien Van Mellaerts (New Zealand representative for Cardiff Singer of the World 2019) and pianist Sunny Li (Steinway Artist). DEBUT has performed at the Royal Albert Hall, Proms on the Roof, Royal Academy of Arts, Victoria & Albert Museum, St James’ Piccadilly, the Old Operating Theatre and runs a private music series for the Birley Clubs in Mayfair. From Autumn 2019 they launch a new series at the Cutty Sark, supported by The Carne Trust.