Abigail Kelly

A classical charity concert in September 2012 featuring composers and performers of Black heritage,"From Coleridge-Taylor to Chopin" - piano, soprano and baritone recital. Saturday 29th September 2012 at 7.30pm, Arnhem Gallery in the Fairfield Halls, Croydon.
Click here to see promotional flyer.

The concert includes piano works and songs by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, alongside piano solos, operatic solos and duets by Chopin, Mozart, Donizetti and Gershwin (Porgy and Bess), and other composers of Black heritage - Scott Joplin (USA), Margaret Bond (USA), Peter Ashbourne (Jamaica) and Juan Francisco Garcia (Dominican Republic).

The programme joins in celebrating the Black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) in his centenary anniversary year.

Coleridge-Taylor was brought up and lived in Croydon in south London, where the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Centenary Festival is currently in progress. He was a student at the Royal College of Music, protégée of Elgar, and a popular composer whose "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast" cantata was frequently performed by choral societies in the UK, USA and elsewhere in the first half of the 20th century. The Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Network , whose president is the Mayor of Croydon, has organised a series of events for the Festival, continuing to December 2012. The highlight was the world premiere in February 2012 at the Fairfield Hall in Croydon by Surrey Opera of Coleridge-Taylor's rediscovered opera "Thelma". The event was sold out and well reviewed.

See the network's website for details of events, activities and Coleridge-Taylor research and publications.

This concert "From Coleridge-Taylor to Chopin" is a charity concert organized by Kiwanis (London division), the international charity raising funds for its "Project Eliminate" which aims to eliminate maternal/neonatal tetanus (MNT) worldwide. Tickets are £25 (students/children £10) from the Fairfield Halls Box Office, 0208 688 9291, www.fairfield.co.uk.

The concert features three performers of Black heritage:

• Maxine Franklin (Piano), Royal College of Music graduate and BBC Mozart competition prizewinner, has given numerous concerts in London, Europe, Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean and USA.
• Abigail Kelly (Soprano), Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Birmingham Conservatoire graduate and prizewinner, has performed in Birmingham, London, across Europe, Jamaica, and with English Touring Opera and Opera South Africa.
• Peter Brathwaite (Baritone), Royal College of Music graduate and prizewinner and Winston Churchill Opera Fellow, has performed operatic parts in UK, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Aldeburgh, Edinburgh Festival and with Opera North, Glyndebourne Festival Chorus and the Diamond Jubilee River Pageant. He won the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor award

Piano accompanist is Oliver Davies, former piano professor and archivist at the Royal College of Music, piano and chamber music performer, music historian and Coleridge-Taylor specialist.