Soprano, composer and alumna Monica McGhee will unveil her debut track cycle, The Pebbles We Preserve, on Sunday 23 November on the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) within the Stevenson Corridor. McGhee has taken poems penned by Scottish girls all through historical past – spanning 400 years – and set them to music. They’ll be carried out by singers of all ages with a feminine actor reciting every poem in its authentic kind earlier than every track.
McGhee explains, “The Pebbles We Preserve remembers the poets who had been usually ignored in their very own lifetimes, whereas providing alternatives for at present’s Scottish singers to be heard, in a bid to rebalance the deficit of feminine roles obtainable throughout the opera world. It goals to honour Scotland’s cultural roots whereas creating new repertoire that future generations of singers can carry out.”
The poems replicate a variety of girls’s experiences, from incapacity and working-class battle to loss, resilience and creativity, by writers together with Janet Hamilton, Jessie Anderson, Carolina Oliphant (Baroness Nairne), Mary Mackellar and Mary Symon with the oldest poem being Elizabeth Melville’s Ane Godlie Dreame from 1603 – the primary printed poem by a Scottish lady. Modern poet Lisa Kennedy’s The Pebbles We Preserve offers the cycle its identify.
Monica McGhee started her musical life as a pianist and trumpet participant. She studied at RCS’s Junior Conservatoire of Music earlier than embarking on her Bachelor of Music undergraduate diploma in Vocal Efficiency. Monica was recognized with thyroid most cancers in 2017 which appeared like it might put a untimely finish to her profession. As she battled the illness and subsequent remedy to restore her voice following emergency surgical procedure, she spent a variety of seasons singing further refrain on the Royal Opera Home, with highlights together with a tour to Tokyo in 2019.
Having efficiently recovered from her sickness, she was accepted because the soprano Younger Artist at The Nationwide Opera Studio for 2020-2021. Current roles embrace the title function in Tosca for Opera Bohemia, Beatrice in Beatrice and Benedict for Mid Wales Opera and the main function of Iolanta for If Opera. Monica made her English Nationwide Opera debut earlier this yr, taking part in Mary Beaton in Thea Musgrave’s Mary, Queen of Scots [see my review], on the anniversary of her most cancers analysis.
The video reveals Monica McGhee performing one of many songs from The Pebbles We Preserve
Full particulars from the RCS web site.
