|
The English soprano, Kate Semmens, was born and educated in Oxford. She studied with Marjorie Thomas, Jessica Cash, and Richard Smart.
Kate Semmens is a soloist with many leading groups and opera companies, and sings with some of the UK's finest choirs. She has been a member of various professional choirs, including the Monteverdi Choir with whom she has toured a range of programmes, including Mozart, Great Venetian composers, and Bach cantatas throughout Europe, with the Gabrieli Consort performing Mozart and Haydn and with Dunedin Consort performing George Frideric Handel's Messiah at Handelfestspielle in Halle (Saale) and J.S. Bach’s B Minor Mass (BWV 232) in Spain.
Her opera performances have included Cupid (Venus and Adonis), Mycene (Isis), Suzanna (Le Nozze de Cherubino), and Mrs P (The Man who mistook his wife for a hat). For New Chamber Opera, performances include Galatea (Acis and Galatea), Second Woman (Dido and Aeneas), Orgando (Amadigi), Atalanta (Xerxes), Semira (Artaxerxes). In 2011 she was Betty in their much acclaimed production of Salieri's Falstaff. She created the role of Euridice in Caldwells' The Story of Orpheus. Of her Ciro, in their production of Stradella's Il Trespolo Tutore, Opera Magazine wrote "the clarity and charm of Kate Semmens' soprano was dissarming". She sang the title role in the first modern performance of John Stanley's Teraminta for Opera Restor'd and recently completed performances of Cavalli's Erismena, from the original English edition bought by the Bodleian Library in 2009. She has sung under many conductors including Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Paul McCreesh, Peter Holman, Professor John Butt, and composer, Eric Whitacre.
Kate Semmens has been particularly enjoying performing recitals of music from the pleasure gardens, and the recent anniversaries of Thomas Arne and William Boyce have given opportunities to explore the wealth of this music even further. She is looking forward to recording this later in the year.
Kate Semmens’s Bach performances as a soloist include: St. John Passioon (BWV 245) Directed by Richard Roddisat at Southwell Minster (April 2006), St Matthew Passion (BWV 244) with Derby Bach Choir at Southwell Minster (April 2009); Bach Cantatas with St Charles the Martyr at Tunbridge Wells (October 2010); Mass in B Minor (BWV 232) with Dunedin Consort at Toroella de Montgri festival, Spain; Bach Arias and Duets with Greg Skidmore and Margaret Faultless in Stert, near Devizes (October 2012).
Kate Semmens has recorded 4 discs with the Brabant Ensemble for Hyperion: Music from the Chirk Castle Part-books; Phinot: Missa Si bona sescepimus, lamentations, Magnificat and Motets, Morales: Magnificat; Manchicourt: Missa Cuidez vous que Dieu nous Faille; and lso Eric Whitacre's most recent disc, 'water night' on Decca. |
