BETTY BANNERMAN AWARD FOR FRENCH SONG - ROSA SPARKS
Fri 17 October 2025 – 3:00pm
Rosa Sparks, winner of the Betty Bannerman Award for French Song 2024, established for students at the Royal Northern College of Music, will give a recital in the neighbouring Clonterbrook Music Room.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, Robin Humphreys is unable to accompany Rosa Sparks for this event, but we are delighted to announce that David Jones has kindly stepped into the breach.
Please note that the Music Room at Clonterbrook is located just after or before the bend approaching Clonter Opera Theatre, on the opposite side of the road.
Programme
L’Enfance et l’Imaginaire
(Childhood & The Imagination)
I. Premiers Jeux (First Games)
Claude Debussy — Quatre chansons de jeunesse
• Pantomime
• Clair de lune
• Pierrot
• Apparition
Reynaldo Hahn — Si mes vers avaient des ailes
II. Le Temps de Grandir (Growing Up)
Gabriel Fauré — Cinq Mélodies de Venise
• Mandoline
• En sourdine
• Green
• À Clymène
• C’est l’extase
III. Histoire du soir (Bedtime Stories)
Francis Poulenc — La Courte Paille
• Le sommeil
• Quelle aventure !
• La reine de cœur
• Ba, be, bi, bo, bu
• Les anges musiciens
• Le carafon
• Lune d’avril
IV. Rêveries et Rêves (Daydreams and Dreams)
Lili Boulanger — Clairières dans le ciel (Selected Songs)
• No. 1 — Elle était descendue au bas de la prairie
• No. 5 — Au pied de mon lit
• No. 9 — Les lilas qui avaient fleuri
Claude Debussy — Nuit d’étoiles
Rosa Sparks – Soprano
Soprano Rosa Sparks is currently studying at the Royal Northern College of Music, where she is completing her Postgraduate Diploma under the tutelage of Elizabeth Ritchie. During her studies at the RNCM, Rosa won the prestigious Frederic Cox Award for Singing competition, and received the Dame Eva Turner Award. She also recently won the Betty Bannerman Award for French Song with Clonter. Rosa’s recent operatic engagements include: Emmie in Britten’s Albert Herring (Opera North), Aloès in Chabrier’s L’étoile (RNCM) and Lucilla in Rossini’s La Scala di Seta (RNCM). Other opera roles include: Yum-Yum, The Mikado (Opera Anywhere), First Lady and Papagena, The Magic Flute (Opera Anywhere), Belinda, Dido and Aeneas (Opera Sparks), Miss Havisham, Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night (Light’s On Theatre), and Chorus in Cherry Town Moscow (Welsh National Opera Young Company). She will perform the role of Mrs Coyle in RNCM’s upcoming production of Britten’s Owen Wingrave. Rosa has a particular interest in contemporary music, and has created the leading roles of ‘The Soprano’ in Interrupted (a modern comedic opera which premiered at the Cardiff Atmospheres Festival), and ‘The Journalist’ in Silverwood (Manchester Community Opera). Rosa is also a regular oratorio and concert soloist. She is currently a member of RNCM Songsters and has performed in the Street Chorus for the RNCM’s fiftieth Anniversary production of Bernstein’s Mass. Recent solo oratorio work includes Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Ascension Oratorio, Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate, and Schubert’s Mass in Ab.
David Jones – Accompanist
David Jones was born on the Wirral. He graduated from the University of Wales, Bangor, with a First Class Honours Degree in Music, specialising in performance and studying piano with Jana Frenklova. He then graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, with a Postgraduate Diploma in Piano Accompaniment, which he studied with John Wilson, and the degree of Master of Music in Performance, for which he also submitted a study of the songs of Albert Roussel. After a year as Junior Fellow in Repetiteur Studies in the RNCM Opera Department, David lectured for three years at University College, Salford. He joined the staff of the School of Keyboard Studies at the RNCM as a Staff Pianist in 1996 and was appointed Accompaniment Co-ordinator in 2001. He also holds the post of Deputy Director and Accompanist for Junior RNCM. David combines a busy performing career in both vocal and instrumental duo work with choral activity: he is pianist for the Hallé Choir, and founder and Musical Director of Altèri, the Manchester-based chamber choir. He also held the post of pianist for Huddersfield Choral Society between 1993 and 2001. For many years he has been a tutor on the summer course Art of Song.
About Betty Bannerman
Betty Bannerman was a distinguished mezzo-soprano who enjoyed a career spanning some seven decades, latterly as a teacher. She specialised in French song and was a pupil and friend of the great French mezzo Claire Croiza. Bannerman’s own voice ranged from low G to the high A flat. She had a rich, warm tone and exemplary diction in whatever language she was singing. A regular soloist at the Three Choirs Festival before and after the Second World War. She sang in the Elgar oratorios and in choral works by Kodáy, Lambert, Mendelssohn and Bliss; She gave more than 200 solo recitals for the BBC; She was a soloist in Bach Passions conducted by Vaughn Williams at the Leith Hill Festivals and worked often with such conductors as Ansermet, Beecham, Goosens and Boult. Besides French song, she excelled in German Leider, Old Italian songs and the English repertoire of Purcell to Britten. Bannerman spent six months in Berlin with Lilli Lehmann and made a special study of lieder with von ur Mühlen. Her first important London recital was at the Aeolian Hall in 1927. The next year she attended a Croiza recital, which made such an impression that she immediately asked to become her pupil, and for the next 10 years studied with her for a month every year.
(Extract from piece written by Michael Kennedy, 2 March 1992, Daily Telegraph).
More Info https://clonter.org/betty-bannerman/
Ticket Pricing & Booking Information
Tickets £20, FREE for Patrons – Click here for details on how to become a Patron
Doors Open 2.30pm
Performance Starts 3pm
Duration Approx. 1 hour
Ticket price includes post-performance tea, coffee and cake.
BOOK THROUGH BOX OFFICE ONLY – 01260 224514