Saturday 8 May 2021 7pm Gold Medal 2021 Finalists Thando Mjandana Laura Lolita Perešivana Olivia Boen Tom Mole Guildhall Symphony Orchestra Natalie Murray Beale conductor Guildhall School of Music & Drama Founded in 1880 by the City of London Corporation Chairman of the Board of Governors Vivienne Littlechild Principal Lynne Williams am Vice Principal & Director of Music Professor Jonathan Vaughan Please visit our website at gsmd.ac.uk Guildhall School is part of Culture Mile: culturemile.london Guildhall School is provided by the City of London Corporation as part of its contribution to the cultural life of London and the nation Gold Medal 2021 Saturday 8 May 2021 7pm The Gold Medal, Guildhall School’s most prestigious award for musicians, was founded and endowed in 1915 by Sir H. Dixon Kimber Bt MA Finalists Thando Mjandana tenor Laura Lolita Perešivana soprano Olivia Boen soprano Tom Mole baritone The Jury Jordan de Souza Huw Humphreys Natalie Murray Beale Gweneth Ann Rand Professor Jonathan Vaughan (chair) Guildhall Symphony Orchestra Natalie Murray Beale conductor Performed at the Barbican Hall on Thursday 6 May 2021 and recorded and produced live by Guildhall School’s Recording & Audio Visual department. Gold Medal winners since 1915 Singers 1977 Clive Birch 1941 Pauline Sedgrove 1979 Patricia Rozario 1942 Joan Goossens 1915 Lilian Stiles-Allen 1981 Susan Bickley 1946 Brenda Farrow 1916 Rene Maxwell 1983 Carol Smith 1947 Mary O White 1917 Dora Labbette 1985 Peter Rose 1948 Jeremy White 1918 Percy Kemp 1987 Juliet Booth 1948 Susanne Rozsa 1919 Arnold Stoker 1989 Bryn Terfel 1950 Leonard Friedman 1921 Marjorie Claridge 1991 William Dazeley 1952 Alfred Wheatcroft 1922 Marion Browne 1993 Nathan Berg 1954 Joyce Lewis 1923 Esther Coleman 1995 Jane Stevenson 1956 Joan Cohen 1924 Linda Seymour 1997 Konrad Jarnot 1958 Michael Davis 1925 John Turner 1999 Natasha Jouhl 1960 Jacqueline du Pré 1927 Marie Fisher 2001 Sarah Redgwick 1962 Robert Bell 1927 Agostino Pellegrini 2003 Susanna Andersson 1964 Sharon McKinley 1928 Stanley Pope 2005 Anna Stéphany 1966 Anthony Pleeth 1929 Elsie Learner 2007 Katherine Broderick 1968 David Loukes 1930 Doreen Bristoll 2009 Gary Griffiths 1970 Jeremy Painter 1932 Charles Mayhew 2011 Natalya Romaniw 1972 Gillian Spragg 1933 Joyce Newton 2013 Magdalena Molendowska 1974 Charles Renwick 1934 Martin Boddey 2015 Marta Fontanals-Simmons 1976 James Shenton 1934 Margaret Tann Williams & Jennifer Witton 1978 Iain King 1935 Norman Walker 2017 Josep-Ramon Olivé 1980 Julian Tear 1936 Louise Hayward 2019 Samantha Clarke 1982 Simon Emes 1936 Arthur Reckless 1984 Kyoko Kimura 1937 Gwen Catley 1986 Tasmin Little 1937 David Lloyd Instrumentalists 1988 Simon Smith 1938 Gordon Holdom 1990 Eryl Lloyd-Williams 1939 Rose Hill 1915 Margaret Harrison 1992 Katharine Gowers 1940 John Nesden 1916 Antoinette Trydell 1994 Richard Jenkinson 1941 Sylvia Roth 1917 Margaret Fairless 1996 Stephen de Pledge 1942 Owen Brannigan 1918 Frank Laffitte 1998 Alexander Somov 1943 Vera Mogg 1919 Marie Dare 2000 Maxim Rysanov 1944 George Hummerston 1920 Horace Somerville 2002 David Cohen 1945 Beryl Hatt 1922 William Primrose 2004 Boris Brovtsyn 1946 Ethel Giles 1923 Walter Nunn 2006 Anna-Liisa Bezrodny 1947 Pamela Woolmore 1924 Sidney Harrison 2008 Sasha Grynyuk 1949 Richard Standen 1926 Sidney Bowman 2010 Martyna Jatkauskaite 1951 William McAlpine 1928 Allen Ford 2012 Ashley Fripp 1953 Margaret Kilbey 1929 Roger Briggs 2014 Michael Petrov 1955 Daniel McCoshan 1930 Daphne Serre 2016 Oliver Wass 1957 Iona Jones 1931 Katherine L J Mapple 2018 Joon Yoon 1959 Josephine W Allen 1931 Max Jaffa 2020 Soohong Park 1961 Edgar Thomas 1933 Joshua Glazier 1963 Benjamin Luxon 1934 Ursula Kantrovich 1965 Verity-Ann Bates 1935 Vera Kantrovich 1967 Wynford Evans 1935 Phyllis Simons 1969 Charles Corp 1936 Lois Turner 1971 David Fieldsend 1937 Kenneth Moore 1973 Graham Trew 1939 Carmen Hill 1975 Ian Kennedy 1940 Marie Bass Gold Medal 2021 Voice and piano Thando Mjandana accompanied by Josh Ridley Laura Lolita Perešivana accompanied by Toby Hession Olivia Boen accompanied by Toby Hession Tom Mole accompanied by Inês Costa INTERVAL Verdi La forza del destino: Overture Voice and orchestra Thando Mjandana Laura Lolita Perešivana Olivia Boen Tom Mole The presentation of the Gold Medal will take place after the final performance and adjudication. Welcome Welcome to Guildhall School’s 2021 Gold Medal. This is the 106th consecutive year that the competition has taken place. It has continued through two world wars and last year’s COVID-19 lockdown without hesitation, repetition or deviation! Last year we achieved great global success with our adventure into low latency broadcasting. Despite this monumental achievement in multi-venue synchronicity by our AV team, it is, nevertheless, a real joy to be back in one single live venue, the Barbican Hall, albeit with no audience. I am delighted to welcome our panel of expert judges: Huw Humphreys, Gweneth Ann Rand, Jordan de Souza and Natalie Murray Beale. Natalie will also be conducting tonight’s performance. We have a mouth-watering prospect in store from our four wonderful finalists this evening who will be taking us on a whistle-stop tour of the vocal and operatic repertoire. Thank you to all of our supporters. In a year of such financial difficulty for so many families, your help has never been more essential or more appreciated. My heartfelt thanks to all of our individual givers, trusts and foundations, livery companies and the City of London who all help to support our students and the School. I hope you enjoy this evening’s performance. Professor Jonathan Vaughan Vice Principal & Director of Music Dedication to Adrian Thorne From then on, he was hugely valued as a dedicated, collegiate and supportive member of the Academic Studies department, bringing legendary insights and perspectives into his musical analysis and history teaching, aural training, keyboard skills and stylistic-composition lessons. A man of great musical passion, skill and expertise, we remember his teaching for his imaginative and individual methods that would nurture and develop students’ musical knowledge and confidence through the integration of musical skills. He possessed a life-long professional and pedagogical commitment to strip the musical discourse of overly rigid theoretical constructs (of which he was, nevertheless, an avid and expert reader), instead directing students’ (and colleagues’) attention to music as practice and music as experience. With him, there always was a sense of wonder and discovery in how This year’s Gold Medal performance is close attention to small musical details dedicated to Adrian Thorne, who sadly would generate and ground the richest passed away suddenly in December 2020. and most rewarding subjective experience, For over 50 years, Adrian was a most highly illuminating the way music works as a regarded and much-loved teacher, colleague powerful artistic practice. In doing this, and member of Guildhall School’s he has significantly influenced and inspired community. The son of Gordon Thorne, several generations of students, and has Principal of Guildhall School from 1959 given colleagues over the years valuable to 1965, Adrian graduated from Guildhall and generous advice, and a legacy to uphold. School as a postgraduate student in piano, musical analysis and conducting in 1969, and immediately took up a teaching Alessandro Timossi position, initially as a tutor at Guildhall, Head of Music Programmes & and then in 1970 becoming a professor Head of Academic Studies of Academic Music. He was awarded a Fellowship in 1976. Thando Mjandana Voice and piano Voice and orchestra Marie – the ‘daughter of the regiment’ – in marriage. ‘My friends, what a day to Vincenzo Bellini Gaetano Donizetti Una celebrate! Here I am, La ricordanza – Recollection furtiva lagrima (L’elisir a soldier and a husband.’ d’amore) Bellini used this melody again in his opera I puritani. Shy young Nemorino is in The lover begs his beloved love with the unattainable for mercy; she places his Adina, whom he attempts to hand on her heart and win with the aid of a magic assures him that she loves ‘elixir’ (actually red wine). him alone. After this She appears to resist his supreme moment of bliss, it advances, but he has noticed would be wonderful to die. a furtive tear in her eye – a sure sign that she loves him. Mbeki ‘Dikela’ Mbali Now there is nothing more Buya – Come back to me he could wish for, and he could die happy. Born in South Africa, Mbeki Mbali draws on the resources Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart of Zulu folk song. The Se di lauri il crine adorno singer longs for the return (Mitridate, re di Ponto) of his beloved Nomvula, remembering how happy Mitridate was Mozart’s first they once were. He calls on operatic triumph, written the mountains that stand when he was only 14. between them to fall so that Mithridates, king of Pontus he can see her again. on the Black Sea, has been defeated by the Roman Leoncavallo general Pompey. ‘Though I Mattinata – Morning do not return home crowned with laurel, yet I am not The dawn, dressed in white, disgraced. Even in defeat I opens the door to the sun still bring you a great heart.’ and caresses the flowers; but you do not appear, and Gaetano Donizetti Ah! mes I am longing to sing to you. amis (La fille du régiment) Put on your white dress and open the door to your singer! Tonio is in jubilant mood: Where you are not, there is not only has he enlisted in no light; where you are, love the army, but he has also is born. been promised the hand of Thando Mjandana tenor b. South Africa Training University of Cape Town; Cape Town Opera; currently second year Guildhall School Opera Course studying with Adrian Thompson. Scholarships Lesley Ferguson Scholarship; Oppenheimer Memorial Trust.