Toad Lane Concerts: Jane Burnell soprano with Tim Kennedy piano

Tim Kennedy and Jane Burnell

Toad Lane Concerts are fortunate in the quality of its visiting performers. The audience at St Mary in the Baum on Wednesday 17 April was treated to a first-class song recital by a versatile, rising star, partnered by an expert accompanist.

Twenty-seven-year-old British/Irish soprano Jane Burnell recently received her master’s from the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). She was the 2021 Sussex Young Musician of the Year, a 2022 finalist of the RNCM Strauss Competition, and a multi-award winner at the 2024 David Clover Festival of Singing. After being a young artist with Buxton Opera in 2023, Jane returns there this season as a principal artist in Ernani (Verdi) and La Canterina (Haydn). She will also be a member of the chorus with Wexford Festival Opera this autumn.

Accompanist Tim Kennedy studied music at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and is now a freelance musician based in Manchester. As well as being a piano accompanist (including ten years as a staff repetiteur at the RNCM), he also works as a professional singer, vocal coach, and organist.

Jane’s carefully selected programme of varied styles centered round the theme of Magic in Melody. Following songs of dreams and beauty by Ireland and Vaughan Williams, her lieder set consisted of love songs by composers Robert Schumann and his widow Clara, resonating a century later in ‘My life belongs to you’ by Ivor Novello.

A further extrapolation followed with songs by Brahms and Fauré that revelled in nature, again finding a twentieth century parallel in ‘the hills are alive with the sound of music’ by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Switching successfully to conversational stage delivery for ‘The place where the lost things go’ (Mary Poppins Returns) by Shaiman, and then embracing the operetta style of Novello’s ‘We’ll gather lilacs,’ suggested that the underlying connection throughout was fine singing, whatever the period or style.

The concluding sublime Morgen by Richard Strauss epitomised it all, beautifully sung and played – Magic in Melody indeed.

The Queen’s Award-winning Toad Lane Concerts are every Wednesday at 12.30pm at St Mary in the Baum, Toad Lane, Rochdale, OL16 1DZ. Entrance fee is £6. No refreshments available. Contact 01706 648872 for further information.

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

Dr Joe Dawson