Felicity Turner & Natalie Burch
Leeds Lieder Young Artists 2018
Felicity Turner mezzo-soprano
Felicity Turner is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and has been described by Gramophone Magazine as ‘beguiling’ and ‘a sheer pleasure’.
Most recently Felicity appeared as Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel (Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra), and with the chorus of Bergen National Opera in Wagner’s Die fliegende Holländer. Other operatic roles include Golden-Tressed Maiden in Maxwell-Davies’ The Hogboon (LSO/Sir Simon Rattle); Third Boy in Die Zauberflöte (Mid Wales Opera, Opera Project); Diana La Calisto, Cherubino Le nozze di Figaro (Hampstead Garden Opera); Ottavia L’incoronazione di Poppea, Fidalma Il matrimonio segreto, Third Lady Die Zauberflöte (GSMD). She also toured London, Dublin, and New York in Drums & Guns, a song-in-theatre production devised and directed by Iain Burnside.
Felicity has performed in recital at the Wigmore Hall, Holywell Music Room, and Milton Court Concert Hall, and performs regularly with SongSpiel, a solo voice ensemble focusing on accompanied multi-voice art song repertoire. On the concert platform she has appeared at venues such as St. John’s Smith Square, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and Cadogan Hall, London, and across France and Norway.
In 2017 Felicity was the winner of the British Song Competition, the Sacred Aria Prize at the National Mozart Singing Competition, and was a finalist in the Susan Longfield Competition. Future highlights include performing the role of Dorabella in Ryedale Festival Opera’s production of Così fan tutte, and recital appearances for the Peter Warlock Society, and the Devon Song Festival.
Natalie Burch piano
Natalie Burch specialises in vocal accompaniment and is widely in demand as a song pianist across London and the UK. She won the accompaniment prize at the 2015 Maureen Lehane Awards at Wigmore Hall, was a finalist alongside 2nd Prize winner James Way at the 2017 Kathleen Ferrier Awards and is a 2018 Britten-Pears and Leeds Lieder Young Artist.
Natalie co-directs a multi-voice song ensemble, SongSpiel, with whom she is touring Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s The Thought Machine through 2018/2019 in an Arts Council funded project with Ensemble Perpetuo. With the group, she is also in the midst of a project performing and recording William Marsey’s Austerity Songs which was commissioned by SongSpiel in 2017.
Performance highlights include Brahms’ Liebeslieder Walzer and Stephen Hough’s Other Love Songs at Wigmore Hall, a new commission by Daniel Kidane for St. John’s Smith Square, recitals with James Way and Francesca Chiejina at Leith Hill Place and 22 Mansfield St. and performances of Schumann’s Mignon Lieder and Frauenliebe und-Leben at St. James’ Piccadilly.
Natalie is a staff pianist at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama where she was a fellow and gained her Masters with distinction under Eugene Asti and Andrew West. She studied at Chetham’s School of Music and in 2014 graduated with first class honors in musicology from King’s College London with piano at the Royal Academy of Music under Daniel-Ben Pienaar and Andrew West.
She is very grateful to her sponsors at the Leverhulme Trust, Help Musicians UK and the Guildhall Trust.