Album Notes

Olivia Robinson

Originally from Salisbury, Olivia Robinson has sung with various consorts, ensembles and choirs, including the Sixteen, Polyphony and The English Concert under Trevor Pinnock, performing all over the UK and Europe. She has been a full-time member of the BBC Singers since 2003 where she works with conductors including Pierre Boulez, Gianandrea Noseda and Richard Hickox, performing a huge breadth of repertoire ranging from Byrd and Tallis to new commissions by Sir Harrison Birtwistle and James MacMillan to name two. Highlights of her solo work for the BBC include singing the role of Procula, Pilate’s Wife, in the world premiere performance and broadcast of Francis Grier’s The Passion of Jesus of Nazareth, and Mozart’s C Minor Mass live on Radio 3 and across the European Broadcasting Union. She has also recently recorded Judith Bingham’s Irish Tenebrae on CD.

Outside the BBC, her solo repertoire includes Handel’s Messiah and Dixit Dominus and various oratorios; Bach’s B Minor Mass, St John Passion, Magnificat and Christmas Oratorio; Haydn’s Creation and The Seasons; Mozart’s Solemn Vespers, Requiem and C Minor Mass; Mendelssohn’s Elijah; Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater and Verdi’s Requiem.


John Hopkins

John Hopkins was born in 1949, at Polegate in Sussex, and educated at Lewes Grammar School and University College, Cardiff, where his teachers included Alun Hoddinott and Arnold Whittall. John took his B.Mus in 1973 and M.Mus in 1974, and then went on to study at the Dartington Summer Schools with Peter Maxwell Davies, who commissioned The Cloud of Unknowing for the Fires of London in 1979.
From 1976 – 78, John Hopkins worked as music organiser at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol, before becoming composer-in-residence for Eastern Arts. Following a period of free-lancing, He now teaches music for the Education Faculty of Cambridge University and also works as Director of Music at Homerton College, where he is a Fellow. In 1983, his piano concerto The Magic Mountain was chosen for the ISCM Festival in Denmark, and the BBC commissioned White Winter, Black Spring for the 1985 Huddersfield Festival. Faustus, for large orchestra, was also commissioned in 1986 for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Other works have been commissioned by the Kings Lynn and Aldeburgh Festivals. The Double Concerto for trumpet, saxophone and orchestra was written in 1994 for John Wallace, John Harle and the City of London Sinfonia, who premiered it, conducted by Richard Hickox. From 1996, John studied for a D.Phil with Martin Butler at Sussex University, graduating in 2000. The central work of his submission, The Floating World for mezzo-soprano is scheduled for performance in November 2008 by Olivia Ray and the K.239 Chamber Orchestra. The University of Hertfordshire commissioned Akhmatova Songs in 2005, and featured this along with the other works on this disc in the University’s annual festival of performances and commissions-Mayfest 2008.