Ella O'Neill & Laurence Kilsby - AWAKENINGS (2024) [Hi-Res]

Tenor Laurence Kilsby, together with accompanist Ella O'Neill , performs pieces by Brahms, Wolf, Saint-Saens, Britten, Schonberg, Clarke, Heggie, Weil and more.

The programme begins from the perspective of youth and all its bright-eyed optimism. From the impressionable, enamoured boy (depicted in Der Knabe und das Immlein and La coccinelle) to the reckless abandon of a girl seduced (vividly explored in Flickan kom ifran sin alsklings mote and The Seal Man). These complexities of growing up and the realisation of what it means to love and, conversely, to lust, drive this journey towards its darker themes.

Laurence Kilsby won first prize in three internationalcompetitions; the Das Lied Competition at the Heidelberger Fruohling Festspiele, the Wigmore Hall/Bollinger International Song Competition and the Cesti Competition at the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik.

Kilsby was a member of the Acade\u0301mie de l'Ope\u0301ra National de Paris. His regular collaborations with Raphaeol Pichon and Ensemble Pygmalion have seen him debut at the Paris Philharmonie, Ope\u0301ra Comique, Wiener Konzerthaus and Palau de la Mu\u0301sica. With the Orchestre Re\u0301volutionnaire et Romantique, he made debuts at the Salzburger Festspiele, Berlin Philharmonie and the BBC Proms. In the U.S. and Canada, he has given concerts and recitals at Carnegie Hall, the Ravinia Festival and Maison Symphonique, Montre\u0301al.