|
Rachel Payne was born in Manchester and studied singing with Eric Greene and Olive Groves at the Royal Academy of Music. While she was there she became a frequent soloist with the London Bach Society under Paul Steinitz, sang in a live BBC Thursday Invitation Concert produced by Hans Keller (to be repeated later at the Proms) and performed in her first programme for BBC Television.
She is an experienced recitalist and, as a member of the Liverpool Lieder Circle, her singing received critical acclaim both locally and nationally. Of one of their recitals, The Daily Telegraph critic, describing ‘the brightness and purity of her voice’, went on to say ‘Fauré’s La Bonne Chanson comprises a variety of moods and these Rachel Payne captured quite admirably’. She continues to give recitals of lieder, mélodie and 20th Century English Song – especially those of Gurney and Britten.
Rachel Payne has also sung with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, the Manchester Camerata and Collegium Musicum of London in oratorio and songs with orchestra. Her recent singing of Mahler’s Fünf Rückert Lieder was described as ‘the high-light of the concert’. Of a performance of Dixit Dominus by Handel, The Manchester Evening News wrote ‘of the soloists, Rachel Payne, a light but firmly focused contralto, was outstanding’ and her recent singing in the same work received similar praise.
She also sings regularly in opera and is currently involved in annual semi-staged performances of the operas in Wagner’s Ring conducted by Nicholas Braithewaite. She has taken leading roles in fully staged operas, particularly those by Verdi, and especially enjoys performing in productions of Purcell, Mozart and Britten for Unicorn Opera.
She has broadcast regularly with the BBC Northern Singers (now the Britten Singers) as both ensemble and solo singer, and, with viol consort, sung solo anthems by Byrd at a Promenade Concert. With the Singers and also as a free-lance soloist, concerts and recitals have taken her to Spain, Poland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, France and Germany, as well as all parts of the British Isles.
|
