The Kathleen Ferrier Awards
Winners
Winner - Njabulo Madlala
South African baritone Njabulo Madlala comes from the Inanda township outside Durban , where he always dreamt that his voice would be “my passport to the world”. But, as he said in a recent BBC interview ‘Winning the 2010 Kathleen Ferrier Award is the most exciting thing that could ever have happened in my life. Coming from South Africa to the UK to study, I never dreamed of this happening!’
Final Auditions, Recorded live at Wigmore Hall, 23rd April 2010
Njabulo Madlala studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, from 2002, gaining his BMus (Hons) degree with distinction in 2006 and going on to gain his MMus with Distinction whilst completing the post-graduate opera course under Robert Dean. He has been supported in his studies by the Peter Moores Foundation (since 2003), The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, The South African National Arts Council, the Countess of Munster Trust and the Music Benevolent Fund. Njabulo Madlala is a Britten Pears Young Artist, a Samling Foundation Scholar and a recipient of The Kenneth Loveland Gift Prize.
At the Guildhall, Njabulo Madlala sang Le Calender in La Rencontre Imprevue and The King in Sallinen’s The King Goes Forth to France. His engagements elsewhere have included Peachum in Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera at the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, Rangwan in Delius’s Koanga at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Fisherman in Bird of Night for the Royal Opera’s ROH2, Porgy in Porgy and Bess at the Cheltenham Festival, Bello in Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West and Schaunard in La boheme for Opera Holland Park, as well as performances with Garsington Opera , Birmingham Opera, Mid-Wales Opera ,and Broomhill Opera. He made his opera debut as Mel in Tippett’s The Knot Garden at the Montepulciano Festival, a performance broadcast live on RAI (Italian Radio). He sang The Angel in a broadcast of The Mysteries (Passions Plays) for BBC TV and has performed with the Swedish Radio Orchestra in Stockholm.
Njabulo Madlala has taken part in masterclasses given by, amongst others, Isobel Buchanan, Dame Anne Evans, Yvonne Kenny, Marie McLaughlin, Ann Murray, the late Philip Langridge, Sir Thomas Allen, Ildebrando d’Arcangelo, Graham Johnson, Malcolm Martineau and Paul Farrington. Conductors and directors with whom he has worked include Martin Andre, Paul Wynne Griffiths, Charles Hazelwood, Martin Lloyd- Evans, Jan Latham Koenig, Antonio Pappano, John Cox, Martin Lloyd-Evans and Graham Vick.
With Sarah Walker he has made a special study of recital repertoire, appearing as part of the Oxford Lieder Festival as well as at the Wigmore Hall. He has participated in the Steans Young Artists Programme at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival and his other concert engagements have included Mozart’s Requiem with Cheltenham Bach Choir, John Rutter’s Mass of the Children conducted by the composer and Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel at the Tavistock Festival.
Njabulo Madlala is currently a member of Cardiff University’s International Academy of Voice (directed by Dennis O’Neill) with whom he is taking part in the Barga International Festival in Italy in May. He will sing Don Fernando in Fidelio in Opera Holland Park’s 2010 season and later in the year will appear with Glyndebourne on Tour .
Photo credits: Robert Piwko