REGULAR PERFORMERS IN THE OCTAGON CONCERT SERIES


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MARY RAE

Mary is a Soprano who studied Music at college in London where she specialised in Singing and studied with Jean Austin Dobson. She continued her studies in Norwich with Catherine Lawson. During her extensive singing career, she has sung in many parts of Britain in various performances ranging from recitals, concerts including a recent Gala Opera Evening narrated by International opera singer, Ian Wallace, and Burns' suppers both in Scotland and England, to principal opera roles, including Abigail in Nabucco, Nedda in Pagliacci and Lucy Locket in the Britten version of The Beggar's Opera, and solos in major choral works including the Mozart, Brahms and Verdi Requiems, and the Stabat Maters of Rossini and Dvorak.

She has also given concerts in Vienna. She organises the highly successful Octagon Concert Series based at the Octagon Chapel, Norwich and is the co-founder of the Octagon Singers and the Verdi Chorus. She also sings with the Norwich-based singing group Octave Plus.

Last November, Mary Rae had the great privilege of singing the soprano solos in the first performance of Octagon Psalms, a new work written especially for her and the Octagon Singers to celebrate their 10th anniversary, and that of the Octagon Concert Series, by Norfolk composer and conductor, Kenneth Hytch. Future singing engagements will be in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge and Edinburgh. Mary Rae is also an experienced choral conductor. Married with a son and a daughter, she teaches part time at Heartsease High School, Norwich. Email: RaeOctagon@aol.com
SHIRLEY HALLUMS

Shirley is the principal conductor of the Octagon Singers, and Chorus Director for the Verdi Chorus. She studied piano at the Royal Academy of Music where she accompanied many singers. Choral activities began in her early teens in her native Yorkshire, and have continued ever since, singing with chamber and large choirs in London, Northampton, Newcastle and Norwich, where for ten years she was a member of the Broadland Singers.

Shirley Hallums spent ten years as Head of Music at Heartsease high School, Norwich. She currently teaches privately and enjoys concert work with her husband, violinist, George Hallums, and various chamber groups. She has directed the Octagon Singers since their foundation in 1984.
JUDY TOVEY

Judy is a native of Nottinghamshire. While at school she studied piano with the late Harold Craxton and gained both Teaching and Performing Diplomas and gave several recitals in Nottinghamshire. She then read for a degree in Music at St Hugh's College, Oxford. While teaching at the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge she gave several further recitals both as a soloist and as a duo with other leading instrumentalists.

After moving to Norwich in 1973, she was the regular repetiteur and accompanist to the Norfolk Opera Players for many years, and has been the pianist for numerous concerts given by their members around the region. She has also been Musical Director for two of their operas and both the accompanist and soloist for the Norwich Singers in several concerts.

Currently she is the pianist for the Octagon Singers and the Verdi Chorus. She has also resumed playing solo items in several concerts particularly works by the early Romantic Composers.

In March 2002 she was privileged to be the solo pianist in the first performance of 'Contemplations upon a Requiem' written for piano and orchestra by Kenneth Hÿtch, and dedicated specially to her.

She is continuing her career as a private piano and theory teacher, and also teaching A Level music as part of the Norfolk Visiting Teachers Service.

Email: k.tovey@uea.ac.uk

GEORGE HALLUMS
RICHARD DUNCAN JOHNSON

Richard studied singing at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in Glasgow and, later with Howell Glynne and Herman Allyn in London.

His wide professional career has included periods with the Glyndbourne and D'Oyly Carte Opera Companies, two years as principal baritone with the American Savoyard Opera and many appearances in concerts and recitals throughtout the UK. While specialising in opera and oratorio he has, in addition, often performed in cabaret both on radio and TV.

Since settling in East Anglia he has sung many roles with the Norfolk Opera Players, Opera da Camera, and Claxton Opera, and has given many converts and recitals. On numerous occasions he has been a soloist in oratorio performances throughout the region.

OCTAGON SINGERS


The then un-named Octagon Singers were formed in 1984 to start the Octagon Concert Series based at the Octagon Chapel in Norwich. After that very first concert, the singers said how much they had enjoyed themselves and asked if they could sing together again. They of course became known as the Octagon Singers, and under the skilful guidance of their conductor, Shirley Hallums, have become a superb choral group. Since 1984, they have performed no less than twenty-eight choral works at the Octagon and other venues in east Anglia, and have, on four occasions, enlarged to form the Verdi Chorus and joined forces with the Wymondham Symphony Orchestra to perform large scale choral works, notably the Requiem by Verdi, and 'Carmina Burana' by Carl Orff. They perform their main concert annually on Good Friday in the Octagon. It was following the Good Friday concert in 1993, that Mary Rae, the administrator, was approached by Norfolk composer, Kenneth Hytch, who asked if he could write a work for the Octagon Singers. The result was a commission for the 10th anniversary of the Octagon Singers and the Octagon Concert Series November 1994, and the work, Octagon Psalms, has the dedication

"To Mary Rae and the Octagon Singers on the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the Octagon Concert Series" . November 1994 - Kenneth Hytch

A second performance of the work was given on Saturday 30 September 1995 in the Unitarian Meeting House in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, once again under the baton of the composer who also conducted the premier on 12 November 1994.

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