Sunday 14th April at 2.30pm

New Zealand baritone Julien Van Mellaerts studied at the University of Otago and the International Opera School of the Royal College of Music. In 2017 he won first prizes in both the Kathleen Ferrier Award and the Wigmore Hall-Kohn Foundation Competition. He also won the Maureen Forrester Prize at the 2018 Concours musical international de Montréal. He has a busy career of opera and concert performances and recently sang Schaunard in the NZ Opera production of La Bohème.

Julien is partnered by South African pianist James Baillieu, professor and head of piano accompaniment at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Educated at the University of Cape Town and the Royal Academy of Music, James is the recipient of several prestigious awards and prizes. His concert career has taken him all over Europe, North America and Asia, working with an extensive list of prominent singers including Ian Bostridge, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Mark Padmore.

These two remarkable young musicians will bring us two wonderful song-cycles – Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel, along with a selection of favourite Schubert lieder and some light-hearted songs about New Zealand birds, composed by Gareth Farr to poems by Bill Manhire.