Joanna Songi, Roberto Abate, Adam Green, Paul McKenzie
Biography Joanna Songi, Roberto Abate, Adam Green, Paul McKenzie
Joanna Songi
A graduate of the Royal College of Music and Cambridge University, Joanna has been a Britten-Pears Young Artist (2014) and Philip and Dorothy Green Young Concert Artist (2015-2017) and is an Opera Prelude Young Artist (2019).
She won first place in the Dean & Chadlington Competition (2018) Brooks-Van der Pump English Song Competition (2013), second place in the Maureen Lehane competition (2012) at the Wigmore Hall, the Thelma King Award for Singers (2014), and the 20th Century Song Prize at the John Kerr English Song Awards (2016). She was semi-finalist in the Das Lied Competition and the Nadia et Lili Boulanger competition (both 2019).
Her developing career has seen her perform with Glyndebourne Festival, Garsington Opera, Opera de Tenerife and Hurn Court Opera.
Adam Green
made his Royal Opera debut in 2011 in James MacMillan’s Clemency and has since sung Ibn Rashid (Zaid Jabri’s Cities of Salt).
Adam studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, the Royal Academy of Music and the National Opera Studio. His engagements include Belcore (L’elisr d’amore) and Arbace (Idomeneo) for English National Opera; Figaro (Il Barbiere di Siviglia) for Welsh National Opera; the title role in Don Giovanni for the Berbiguières Festival, France; Police Lieutenant (Tippett’s The Ice Break) for Birmingham Opera Company; Steuermann in Tristan und Isolde for Longborough Festival; and Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas) for ENO, Opera North, Opéra de Lille and the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
His concert appearances include Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Frankfurt, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Handel’s Messiah and Fauré’s Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall, Elgar’s Coronation Ode with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Elijah in Budapest and Telemann’s St Matthew Passion in Aldeburgh.
Adam has won several prizes and awards, including the Song Prize at the National Mozart Competition, the Great Elm Competition, and the Ian Fleming and Sybil Tutton awards.
Roberto Abate
completed his Masters degree in Advanced Vocal Technique at the Wales international Academy of Voice, under the tutelage of Dennis O’Neill, having been awarded an Australian International Opera scholarship and an award from the Tait Memorial Trust. In his home country of Australia, he performed with WA Opera from 2006 to 2010. He won various awards and competitions at that time and was a finalist in the Bel Canto Award from the Joan Sutherland Society n both 2012 and 2013.
Since relocating to the United Kingdom, Roberto has performed in a wide range of roles in bel canto, verismo and contemporary operas with Opera North, Opera Vera and several other companies. His repertoire also includes the solo parts in Verdi’s Requiem, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater and Bach’s B Minor Mass to name but a few, and has appeared as soloist alongside both Sumi Jo and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. He recently made his European debut as Don José in Carmen, in Holland.
Paul McKenzie
lives in London, and works as a Repetiteur for Opera: most recently with Grange Park Opera, English Touring Opera, and Opera Up Close.
Paul McKenzie was the holder of the Adami Award for Piano Accompanists Junior Fellowship at the Royal College of Music 2014-2015 and has continued to work there since.
Previously, Paul completed a Masters in Piano Accompaniment at the RCM, studying with Simon Lepper. Paul has also performed many concertos, and enjoys working as an orchestral pianist, a song accompanist and jazz pianist.
