December 31, 2020 at 9:11 am
Conductor Jane Glover has been made a dame in the 2021 New Year’s Honours for services to music, alongside the Birmingham Opera Company’s founder and artistic director Graham Vick, who has been knighted.
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Glover is one of the UK’s leading conductors and musicologists, having previously held the role of music director of both the London Mozart Players and Glyndebourne Touring Opera. In 2013, she became the third woman ever to conduct at the New York’s Metropolitan Opera, in a production of Mozart’s
The Magic Flute. Earlier this year, she was
female conductors to the stage. As a music professor and educator, she has previously held positions as director of opera at the Royal Academy of Music and visiting professor of opera at the University of Oxford. She has been a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) since the 2003 New Year’s Honours.
Claire Rutter. Image: Joseph Sinclair WORLD-renowned opera singer announces a series of Christmas concerts in Winchester, to raise funds for the the city s hospice Local resident and world-famous soprano Claire Rutter has announced a series of Christmas concerts, which will take place on December 18 and 20 at St Paul’s Church, to raise funds for the Winchester Hospice, who are currently attempting to reach their fundraising target in order to open in 2021. Claire, who was in dress rehearsals for the critically acclaimed Rusalka at English National Opera, London, when lockdown started in March, has seen her entire year’s work disappear due to the pandemic.
From left: Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Lawrence Power
Credit: Kayla Wren/Jack Liebeck/Avalon.Red
In a disastrous year for the arts which saw venues close and many lose their livelihoods overnight, some individuals and organisations showed bravery, initiative and good old blitz spirit to try to keep the party going. Here are seven who brightened up 2020.
Pop: Sophie Ellis-Bextor
By hanging a glitterball and tinsel curtain in the open plan kitchen of her home in west London, underemployed pop star Sophie Ellis-Bextor became a beacon of national joy. Every Friday through the darkest hours of the pandemic, the 41-year-old mother-of-five staged an ebullient, cheerfully chaotic Kitchen Disco, filmed on an iPhone and streamed live on Instagram.