Tenor and Composer Tom Randle’s oratorio The Affirming Flame will receive its world premiere by the Ipswich Choral Society at Snape Maltings Concert Hall on 6 April. The five-part oratorio uses text from poets such as Siegfried Sassoon and Carl Sandburg, and ‘The Parcel’ from local poet Pam Job of the Suffolk Poetry Society. Mr Randle will perform alongside soprano Gillian Keith, contralto Natalie Davies and bass Trevor Eliot Bowes with the ICS Festival Orchestra under its Music Director Michael Dolan, This new piece will serve as a companion to Mozart’s Requiem to be performed during the second half of the programme.
Tom Randle began early studies in conducting and composition, but a scholarship to study voice soon meant a change in career direction. He made his début with the English National Opera as Tamino in The Magic Flute and has repeated the role with great success at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Hamburg, New Zealand and the Covent Garden Festival, swiftly followed by his Royal Opera House debut in 1994 as Essex (Gloriana) with Phyllida Lloyd and Opera North, a production later released as a feature film for BBC Television. He made his Royal Opera debut in 1997 as Johnny Inkslinger (Paul Bunyan) and has since sung Fool (Gawain) and Macheath (The Beggar’s Opera) for The Royal Opera, and Song of the Earth for The Royal Ballet. Well known for his vivid and committed stage portrayals and a unique ability to embrace a wide variety of repertoire, Tom has emerged as one of the most exciting and versatile artists of his generation.
Engagements for the 2018/19 season include Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Massimo Zanetti followed by a return to the Handel and Haydn Society for Mozart’s Requiem. Randle will also be performing the role of Loki/Helgi/God (The Monstrous Child) for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
As a composer, his works have been performed in the UK, Europe and the US, including the Buxton and Presteigne Festivals, Lille Opera and the Broad Stage Concert Hall in Los Angeles. His latest opera ‘A Telephone Call’ premiered in 2015 with Second Movement, and formed part of that year’s Tête à Tête Opera Festival. Tom’s music has been performed at both the Dartington International and Edinburgh Festivals. In 2017, his new work, ‘Los Nacimientos’, a dance and theatre piece based on a new song cycle comprising settings of poems by Pablo Neruda, premiered at the Buxton International Festival. Following the success of ‘A Telephone Call’, Tom Randle’s new opera ‘Love me to Death’ was premiered as the final event at the 2018 Tête à Tête Opera Festival.
For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit snapemaltings.co.uk
