The Spring 2024 season of events at RWCMD is packed with gems

As the College launches in to its 75th anniversary year, the spring season is packed with gems, from Welsh legends, Dame Siân Phillips and Gruff Rhys to theatre and opera classics including Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi.

World class women performers, violinist Rachel Podger, triple harpist Cerys Hafana, folk singer Angeline Morrison, sitarist Roopa Panesar and jazz singer Liane Carroll each bring individual brilliance to their musical traditions. Meanwhile, exceptional dance and physical theatre comes from Jasmin Vardimon Company’s ALiCE, Theatre Re’s powerful and joyous production, The Nature of Forgetting, and Anthony and Kel Matsena’s insight into the development of their new work BOY-ISH.

The season also features folk musician Martin Green (Lau), funk trombonist Dennis Rollins, percussionist Colin Currie, pianists Louis Lortie and Elisabeth Brauss and cellist Pieter Wispelwey, and we are delighted to be presenting our first cohort of BA Musical Theatre performers, now in their final year, on stage in Carrie.

There’s a huge amount more besides, including director and scenographer Pamela Howard OBE’s exhibition Welcome to Wales, which will fill the Sir Howard Stringer Studio in The Old Library with a moving depiction of migration stories from around the world.

Visiting Dance/Physical Theatre/Theatre
Matsena Productions – an open rehearsal of their new work BOY-ISH.
Jasmin Vardimon Company – ALiCE – this acclaimed dance company makes its first visit to the college.
Theatre Re’s The Nature of Forgetting – “What is left when memory is gone” – a powerful and joyous story of the impact of early onset dementia on a family, all told through movement.
Mama Afrika – the story of legendary South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba.

Women with unique voices within their musical traditions
Rachel Podger/Brecon Baroque – one of the jewels of the Welsh music scene.
Cerys Hafana – Welsh multi-instrumentalist and transformer of traditional music, nominated for the Welsh Music Prize 2023.
Angeline Morrison – Cornish folk singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.
Roopa Panesar – one of the finest sitar players to emerge from the UK.
Liane Carroll – multi-award-winning jazz vocalist and pianist.

Musical Theatre
In 2021 the first students on the new BA Musical Theatre course started at RWCMD, this spring audiences can see them perform in a full-scale musical for the first time in Carrie: The Musical. The MA Musical Theatre singers perform in Make me a Song, the musical revue about The Music of William Finn.

Music residencies:
Martin Green – folk musician from Lau and BBC Radio 4 presenter of Love, Spit and Valve Oil – bringing his passion for brass bands to the stage with collaborative new works.
Dennis Rollins/Velocity Trio – Jazz-funk trombonist extraordinaire working with RWCMD students.
Pieter Wispelwey – the great Dutch cellist will be playing alongside the RWCMD String Soloists.
Colin Currie Quartet – side by side performance with RWCMD percussion students.

Return visits from regular guests:
Manchester Collective & Fergus McCreadie’s The Unfurrowed Field.
Sinfonia Cymru - with award winning electric and acoustic guitarist Sean Shibe.
The WNO Orchestra return to Vienna in their annual New Year concert.

Piano
Louis Lortie and Elisabeth Brauss continue the Steinway International Piano Series 23/24.
Welsh virtuoso Llŷr Williams presents recital 2 in his Exploring Genius: Haydn to Schumann series.

Design for Performance
As well as seeing the work of our talented theatre designers in our stage productions, audiences can also see their work up close in Pamela Howard’s Welcome to Wales Exhibition and the ever popular The Wearable Art Show.

Richard Burton Company – the College’s in-house theatre company made up of students in their final year of study both on and off the stage, present a range of plays. The February, both Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Elinor Cook’s Image of an Unknown Young Woman explore honour and power, both in personal relationships and also through themes of who or what has power in our society. In March, witness international espionage in A Very Expensive Poison by Lucy Prebble, a global crisis in Mike Bartlett’s Earthquakes in London, and a mysterious stranger in The Sewing Group by E.V. Crowe. These three intriguing plays will take us on a thrilling journey from pre-industrial rural England, shocking present day true events, to the dystopian London of the future.

Opera Double Bill
The singers of the David Seligman Opera School head to the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff with Puccini’s one act comic opera Gianni Schicchi and Ottorino Respighi’s La Bella Dormente nel Bosco (The Sleeping Beauty).

Special appearances from Welsh Legends
Gruff Rhys announces his new album 'Sadness Sets Me Free' - SOLD OUT.
Richard Digby Day will talk to Dame Siân Phillips about her life and career.