FRIENDS & PATRONS EVENING

Historically we have not advertised this event to the rest of our supporters, but we very much would like to offer the opportunity to as many people as possible to attend this rather special event.

Not Too Late To Become A Friend

If you would like to become a Friend and attend this event, please click here, or contact the Box Office on boxoffice@clonter.org or 01260 224514.

6pm – Drinks reception (glass of prosecco or something soft)
7pm – 1 hour of musical entertainment
8pm – Bring a post-performance picnic

Camilla Seale – Mezzo-Soprano

Praised for her ‘velvety mezzo’ timbres (The Telegraph), Camilla adores a wide range of repertoire from contemporary to baroque, performing regularly with Musica Antica (album, ‘La decima musa’ forthcoming). Through 2026, she sings Kate in Die Piraten von Penzance (Volksoper Wien), Alcina in Caccini’s La liberazione di Ruggiero (Buxton Festival / Vache Baroque), alto voice and Stephano in Shakespeare’s The Tempest (Vache Baroque), Female Customer in Angel’s Bone (ENO), and will shoot two film shorts. Recent opera roles include Orlofsky in a UK tour of Die Fledermaus (Merry Opera), Angelina in La Cenerentola (Hurn Court Opera) and Dido for Longborough Festival with Barokksolistene. She was a Britten-Pears Artist, a Young Artist at the National Opera Studio, has performed several times at Clonter before, and looks forward to debuting the title role in Carmen in 2027. She is a keen aerialist, surfer and also ran a physical-theatre / baroque opera ensemble, the New Renaissance Collective for several years.

Jordan Harding – Baritone

Jordan Harding studied at the University of Manchester (BMus) and the Royal Northern College of Music, where he attained an MMus Masters degree in voice under the tutelage of the Bass-Baritone and Conductor Matthew Best. Jordan has become a familiar face at Clonter, with previous performances including the 2022 Opera Gala, and the role of Mr Gedge in Clonter’s production of Britten’s Albert Herring. As a Cheshire native, Clonter has played a key role in Jordan’s operatic journey. As a child, he heard operatic singing for the first time at one of Clonter’s outreach workshops. Jordan has also featured as a guest soloist with the Symphonia Verbum Orchestra (SVO), Stoke-on-Trent’s only professional symphony orchestra, for their Summer Spectacular concert. In 2023, Jordan moved to Germany to join the ensemble of the Nationaltheater Mannheim as a member of their Opera Studio for the 2023/24 season. Other operatic highlights include the roles of Maggiordomo in Puccini’s La Rondine (If Opera); Herald in Vaughan Williams’ The Pilgrim’s Progress (RNCM), and Silvio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. Jordan also sang the role of Townsperson in the children’s opera The Orphan’s of Koombu (Buxton Festival) and has performed with other leading companies in the UK including Opera Holland Park and Opera Rara. In concert, Jordan has shown his artistic versatility in performances of works including Karl Orff’s Carmina burana, Cimarosa’s Il maestro di cappella, Vaughan Williams’ Dona nobis pacem and Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder. In the field of song he has embraced text-forward interpretations of English song and Lieder, as well as the music of the Great American Songbook. Away from classical performance, Jordan also works as a jazz vocalist and as a writer and songwriter, with some of his recent collaborative work published on the Flexitracks label.

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.

Drink Arrangements

Clonter has a fully licensed bar offering a wide range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, including local Beartown Beer brewed in Congleton, Halfpenny Green Sparkling Wine from Staffordshire, and Crag Spring Water from the Peak District. Check out the Wine & Bar List below.

Please note that all drink consumed inside the premises, including hot drinks, soft drinks and bottled water, must be purchased from the bar. For Friends and Patrons of Clonter who wish to bring their own drink, a corkage fee of £5 per person will apply (payable at least one week in advance, either online or on 01260 224514).

N.B. Picnic table and catering booking facilities, as well as pre-order drinks facilities, are subject to availability and close a week before the performance date.