You got a Degree... Now What?!

Welcome back to this intermittent blog! So much has happened since I last posted here in January, so let’s crack into it shall we? 

All the way back in February there was an Italian reunion in Gisborne. Jack Richards invited Joanna Foote and myself to perform a recital at Tiromoana, his beautiful home. It was a real treat to collaborate with Joanna again and to work with Xing Wang, our accompanist, for the first time. We presented a recital of our favourite music, which included some rep that we had performed together at Villa Petrolo, and it was incredibly successful. It was a real treat to spend time in sunny Gisborne. I’ll pop up a picture from our evening walk along the beach, absolute bliss! 

Gisborne at Sunset

Joanna, Xing and Myself, Tiromoana

From there it was back to Auckland to work at the Uni Libraries over summer until the start of the semester. It was my final semester at Auckland Uni, which was a slightly terrifying thought as I had only begun in June! The semester started off with a visit from ‘Distinguished Visitor’, Simon O’Neill. He was at Uni for two weeks and I was fortunate enough to be selected to have some lessons with him, participate in both a public masterclass and be featured in his concert with the Auckland Chamber Choir. It was an incredibly insightful couple of weeks, with many pearls of wisdom gathered from Simon, both working with him and watching him work with others. 

Masterclass with Simon O’Neill at the University of Auckland

The past few months have been filled with many fun gigs including:

• A concert series for the Dame Malvina Major Foundation at various Summerset Retirement homes around the Auckland region 

• A performance on Waiheke at the Poderi Crisci winery

• My first performance with Bach Musica as the tenor soloist in The Birds

• Singing with the Auckland Symphony Orchestra in their Last Night at the Proms concerts. 

Just last week I was back in Gisborne again, this time as part of the Tairawhiti Museum’s winter concert series. Due to Don Giovanni rehearsals (I was a member of the chorus for the APO/NZO concert version of DG), I arrived late Saturday night, sang the recital on Sunday afternoon and was back in Auckland by tea time! I presented a real smorgasboard of a programme, with some Italian art song, German Lied, British folk song, Sings Harry and some fun music theatre pieces to wrap it all up.

Prior to this I had two other very important recitals to complete my degree. As a special research topic, I chose to explore some of Schubert’s Schwanengesang and present them with my coach and supervisor for the project, Rachel Fuller. It was musically and artistically an incredibly satisfying process and getting an A+ made it all the better! For my final Honours recital I presented an interesting and diverse programme of music that I had discovered and fallen in love with over the semester, with Monteverdi, Beethoven, Lilburn, Britten and a cheeky bit of Sondheim thrown in at the end (who doesn’t love Giants in the Sky!). I was particularly excited to present the Lilburn song cycle Sings Harry as it is the first New Zealand work that I have performed as a soloist. Having now performed the cycle twice, I can’t wait to continue working on it and developing who my “Harry’ is. I promise I’m not giving you homework, but if you want to read more about the cycle then here’s a great little article:

https://www.noted.co.nz/culture/music/douglas-lilburn-sings-harry-review/

It turns out I received a mark of 96 percent, so I now have another feather to add to my cap, Bachelor of Music Honours with First Class! 

My brief time at Auckland Uni was so fulfilling. I have made many new fantastic friends who I cannot wait to perform with in the future on the professional stage. It was also such a great programme. I was able to fill my time with practical studies that will be applicable to my career, such as building the basics for learning a role and developing a character and studying repertoire that I will be performing for the rest of my life.

Earlier in the year I received an incredibly exciting email from the Circle100 inviting me to apply for their scholarship. The Circle100 are a group of like minded people who support young singers and help them reach their next level of study. My application was accepted and I was on to the next round; a day of masterclasses with the committee and a panel consisting of Simon O’Neil, Iain Patterson and Sophie Joyce. Singing for the panel was a great opportunity to get some honest and constructive advice from three industry professionals. At the end of the day I was awarded a travel scholarship that will contribute to an audition/consultation tour at the end of the year to help me start planning the next stage of my career. I am incredibly honoured to receive this scholarship and can’t wait to have the opportunity to return to the UK/Europe.

Other than this fantastic trip towards the end of the year, the rest of my life will be based around various regional competitions and an audition that, all going well, will mean some exciting things for 2020 which I will let you know about as soon as I have things to tell!

Until next time… 

Harry