An Evening of Spring Romance

Join us for a delightful spring evening filled with a heady bouquet of romances performed by mezzo-soprano Jessica Lawrence-Hares and pianist Olga Elbourn. Experience the themes of love, loss, joy, and nature through the captivating works of Dargomyzhsky, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff.

Concert Programme

Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857)

Oh, do not sing to me, fair maiden, Op. 51, No. 2

Barcarolle

The Lark

Alexander Dargomyzhsky (1813-1869)

My sister’s garden

A mad one, I still love him

I loved you

Mily Balakirev (1837-1910)

I loved him

Come to me

Song of the golden fish

César Cui (1835-1918)

A statue in Tsarskoye Selo, Op. 57, No. 17

My desire, Op. 57, No. 25

I touched the bloom lightly, Op. 49, No. 1

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

Night, Op. 8, No. 2

My dreams, Op. 40, No. 3

The swift parade of clouds, Op. 42, No. 3

Interval

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Lullaby, Op. 16, No. 1

At the ball, Op. 38, No. 3

Why?, Op. 6, No. 5 

Again, as before, alone, Op. 73, No. 6

Indoors, the lights were being put out, Op. 63, No. 5

None but the lonely heart, Op. 6, No. 6

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

April, a festive spring day

In the silence of the secret night, Op. 4, No. 3

A dream, Op. 8, No. 5

Oh, do not sing to me, fair maiden, Op. 4, No. 4

My child, you are as beautiful as a flower, Op. 8, No. 2

A dream, Op. 38, No. 5

The night is mournful, Op. 26, No. 12

Spring waters, Op. 14, No. 11

Jessica Lawrence-Hares received her BM magna cum laude and her MM in voice performance from Boston University. Her operatic roles include Mercedes (Carmen) and Nicklaus (Hoffmann’s Erzählungen) with the Komische Kammeroper München, Lady with a Hat Box (Postcard from Morocco) and the Sea (Before Night Falls) with the Boston University Opera Institute, as well as Mad Margaret (Ruddigore) the Third Lady (The Magic Flute), and Marcellina (The Marriage of Figaro) with the Cambridge Operatic Society.

She has been a featured soloist in performances of Aaron Copland’s In the Beginning and Mozart’s Requiem in the Boston area, as well as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Tuscany. Jess has also performed in the premieres of several new operas, including Are Women People? (Mother, 2014) and Porcelain and Pink (Lois, 2015) by Kate Waring, as well as Strange Ghost (Ka Cox, 2015) by David Earl.

Her concert repertoire includes Sea Pictures and excerpts from Der Rosenkavalier with the Cambridge Sinfonietta, and performances of The Music Makers, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Dido and Aeneas, and The Canterbury Pilgrims with Choir2000. In 2019, she performed in the premiere of Peddars Way, a new work by Kevin Flanagan.

Most recently, Jess joined the Lepetit Ensemble for a concert featuring women composers at Hughes Hall and sang Saint-Saëns’ Oratorio de Noël with the Haslingfield Choir and Orchestra.

Visit Jessica’s website for more details https://www.jessicalawrencehares.com/

Olga Elbourn graduated in 2004 with highest honours from the State Conservatoire in St. Petersburg, Russia, as a concert pianist, piano teacher, accompanist, and chamber ensemble player. After completing a postgraduate course at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire in 2006, she held a position there for the next nine years as a Senior Accompanist for opera singing and Russian folk instrument classes, working with some of the best-known opera singers and folk instrumentalists.

On the concert platform, she has collaborated with soloists from leading opera theatres worldwide and has been a member of numerous chamber ensembles in Russia and Europe. She is a prize-winner of several international competitions and, in 2007, was awarded the prestigious “Richard Wagner Stipendienstiftung” scholarship in Germany.

Since 2014, Olga has lived permanently in the UK, in Cambridge, where she continues her extensive performing and teaching career. She is the Principal Accompanist of the St. Ives Choral Society, regularly collaborates with various instrumentalists and singers for performances, and teaches a large class of piano students.

Host or Publisher The Cambridge Russian-Speaking Society (CamRuSS)