Toad Lane Concerts: Tim Kennedy tenor and Catherine Hall-Smith piano

Catherine Hall-Smith and Tim Kennedy

Two highly accomplished musicians presented 400 years of song in one hour on Wednesday 10 January. That is, enchanting vocal gems through the ages.

Tim Kennedy began his musical career singing for the late Queen, as a treble at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, before becoming a music scholar at Winchester College and then organ scholar at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He has now been based in Manchester for more than fifteen years pursuing a multi-faceted career not only as a tenor soloist but also a talented pianist, and organist. It was his gifts as a tenor that were enjoyed today.

He was accompanied by Catherine Hall-Smith who studied piano at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and as a postgraduate at the Royal Northern College of Music, where she has worked as an accompanist since 2015 as well as being a teacher, coach, accompanist and examiner.

Extracts of early opera by Monteverdi and Mozart led to a reflective set of night songs. This was contrasted with a comic interlude featuring first a weasel and then a goat.

Charming parlour songs and ballads right through to the present day were elevated and took on greater significance in the wonderful acoustic of St Mary in the Baum, with Tim’s expressive and mellifluous tone and Catherine’s sensitive and supportive accompaniments.

The Queen’s Award-winning Toad Lane Concerts every Wednesday at 12.30pm at the Grade 1 listed church of St Mary in the Baum, Toad Lane, Rochdale, OL16 1DZ. Entrance fee is £6. Contact 01706 648872 for further information.

To see details of forthcoming Toad Lane Concerts, click here.

Dr Joe Dawson