Christopher Bucknall was brought-up in Somerset and studied at Oxford University
and the Royal Academy of Music, studying harpsichord and fortepiano with Carole
Cerasi.
Opera credits include conducting Handel, The Choice of Hercules (Bampton Classical Opera), Pergolesi, La Serva Padrona (Vestfolds International
Festival, Norway) and Purcell, Dido and
Aeneas (Coming Up Festival for The Old Vic), assisting on Handel, Rindaldo (Glyndebourne Festival Opera), Handel, Alessandro and Il Pastor Fido (London Handel Festival), Cavalli, Eliogabalo (Grange Park Opera), Britten The Turn of the Screw (Aldeburgh Music).
In 2012, he will conduct Handel, Apollo e
Dafne for Bampton Classical Opera at the Wigmore Hall.
Further conducting credits include Handel, Messiah and Acis and Galatea, Bach Johannes-Passion,
Alessandro Scarlatti’s opera, Marco Attelio Regolo and concert
performances with the International Baroque Players.
Christopher works extensively as a keyboard continuo player for groups
including The Kings Concert, Early Opera Company, London Handel Orchestra and
Classical Opera Company. In 2010, he recorded the Bach Violin Concertos with
Rachel Podger and made his concerto debut at the Wigmore Hall.
Julian Forbes
Hailed by Opera
Britannia for his “beautiful and bright tenor…simply oozing charisma”,
Julian Forbes is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, where he took a
Master with distinction and the Charles Norman Prize. A twice-elected
Britten-Pears Young Artist, he is establishing a reputation in the UK and
abroad for the musicality and intelligence of his singing across a wide
repertoire spanning the 17th century to the present. He studies with
Philip Doghan.
A passionate
enthusiast for the Baroque and a member of the European Baroque Academy, Julian
is making increasingly frequent appearances with some of the world’s leading
Baroque specialists. He has worked as a soloist with Richard Egarr, Lawrence
Cummings, Masaaki Suzuki and Sigiswald Kuijken, appearing at Wigmore Hall, the
Aldeburgh Festival, the Snape Proms and venues and festivals throughout Europe
including the Anima Mundi Festival at Pisa, Pavia Barocca, the Festival
Tolouse-les-Orgues and the Festival Ambronay. With the Academy of Ancient Music
and Richard Egarr, he has featured as a soloist in performances of Bach on BBC
Radio 3.
Equally
comfortable with other genres and styles, Julian’s concert repertoire is
diverse, including Beethoven Christ on the Mount of Olives, Finzi Dies
Natalis, Britten St Nicolas and Bach Christmas Oratorio. On
the recital platform, Julian has appeared at the London English Song, Norfolk
and Norwich and Kyoto International Music Student festivals, and has performed
all three Schubert song-cycles with Benjamin Woodward at St John’s Church,
Fulham. Increasingly drawn by his own interests to the creation of new
programmes, he has premiered a concert of “Handel’s Rivals” at Handel House
Museum in collaboration with soprano Sarah Gabriel, and is currently preparing
a second for the same venue, entitled “Music in the Pleasure Gardens”. As a
founder member of the Baroque collective Solomon’s Knot, finally, Julian works
in close collaboration with Jonathan Sells and James Halliday on the annual
production of two-three concerts of Baroque repertoire. The next of these, “a
chamber Messiah” featuring just eight singers, will take place at St John’s,
Smith Square in December.
Future engagements include appearances at the
Snape Maltings, St George’s Bristol and the Spitalfields Festival and recording
sessions for harmonia mundi USA with La Nuova Musica, French Baroque cantatas
at Wigmore Hall and West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge with the Academy of
Ancient Music and Handel Israel in Egypt with the English Chamber
Orchestra in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.
