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. Rosa will be accompanied by the ‘World Class’ pianist, Robin Humphreys.
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.
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 Conter. 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.
Robin Humphreys – Accompanist
Robin Humphreys is a graduate of the University of Birmingham and a holder of the prestigious Diploma in Professional Performance from the Royal Northern College of Music, where he studied piano accompaniment with David Lloyd. Appearing in concert for over 40 years, he enjoys a successful career as an accompanist and répétiteur (praised as “world-class” by Louise Flind for “Opera Today”), the breadth of his repertoire being reflected in television and radio broadcasts ranging from BBC Radio 3 to Emmerdale! A Principal Lecturer at the RNCM, Robin is a senior music coach within the School of Vocal Studies and Opera, for whom he was also chief répétiteur on the majority of college opera productions from the late 1990s until 2013. He has appeared with the Manchester Camerata in the world première of “A Feast of Fables” by Paul Reade, has been Musical Director for Feelgood Theatre Productions and, from 1990-2000, Opera & Concert Productions (Worldwide) Ltd with whom he toured throughout the Gulf, the Indian sub-continent and the Far East. Robin has a particularly close association with Clonter Opera Theatre in Cheshire, where he regularly works as Assistant Musical Director and Accompanist. For 35 years he was an accompanist member of the British & International Federation of Festivals.
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