Chetham's School of Music

Acclaimed Korean Opera star Hera Hyesang Park will close out Manchester Song Festival 2024 with a blend of Korean art songs and operatic classics.

‘Audience members were captivated’ – Opera Wire

‘Her vocal dexterity is obvious’ – The Classic Review

PRE-CONCERT PERFORMANCE

We are delighted to announce that singer Phoebe Rayner will be performing ahead of this concert at 7pm. Phoebe Rayner is part of our Emerging Artists Scheme, and performed here in September 2023 as part of our Rush Hour Concerts series.

About Phoebe Rayner

Praised for her “coppery” and “richly coloured mezzo”, Phoebe Rayner is a recent graduate of the Royal College of Music. She is a Stoller Hall Emerging Artist and a 2022-23 Britten Pears Young Artist specialising in contemporary music and the development of new works.

She’ll be performing works by Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Messiaen and more.

ABOUT HERA HYESANG PARK

With “brilliant tone” and “a sense of pure joy and excitement” (OperaWire), soprano Hera Hyesang Park is celebrated not only for her exquisite voice and stagecraft, but for the deeper ideas embodied in her work.

Originally from South Korea and trained at The Juilliard School, she blends her Korean roots and Western life in a cosmopolitan approach to life and art. Her lyric coloratura voice carries both immaculate technique and a seemingly infinite variety of tonal colors, combining in a fearless and captivating stage presence.

Park’s early 2024 season highlights include the release of her second album, Breathe, on Deutsche Grammophon. She performs repertoire from Breathe at 2024 Seoul Fashion Week and in recital at Seoul’s Lotte Concert Hall. Additional highlights include a gala concert with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Park later sings the role of Despina in Così fan tutte at Opera de Paris. She performs recitals with pianist Andrés Sarre in Mexico, and with pianist Bretton Brown in the UK, where she also makes her debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Park has appeared in opera roles at the Metropolitan Opera, Glyndebourne Festival, Opera de Paris, Berlin Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper and Münchner Rundfunkorchester. She has also performed as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Opera. Park’s first album, I am Hera, was released on Deutsche Grammophon in 2020.

Park studied at Seoul National University before earning her two-year Artist Diploma in Opera Studies at the Juilliard School in 2015. Learn more at www.herahyesangpark.com.

Japanese American pianist Bretton Brown enjoys a diverse career as song accompanist, chamber musician, and coach. He lives in London and made his debut there in 2016 accompanying Renée Fleming at Wigmore Hall. Further song recital appearances include Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), and the Edinburgh International Festival. His performances have been broadcast by the BBC, Bayerischer Rundfunk and Sirius XM. In 2023/24, he tours the United Kingdom with Hera Hyesang Park and the United States with Julia Bullock. His season began at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, where he prepared the world premiere of Picture a day like this, the newest opera by Sir George Benjamin and Martin Crimp. Brown has worked closely with George Benjamin for over a decade. He was repetiteur/coach for the world premiere of Lessons in Love and Violence (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden) and subsequent productions across Europe (Dutch National Opera, Opéra national de Lyon, and a concert tour of Germany and Belgium with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra), as well as the American and Canadian premieres of Written on Skin. He has performed as a guest artist with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, including at the BBC Proms, the Berliner Philharmonie, and the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, with Benjamin conducting, and he also played Ligeti’s Kammerkonzert with members of the MCO at Aix. Future performances with Benjamin include staged and concert performances of both Written on Skin and Picture a day like this.

In 2024, Brown returns to the Dutch National Opera as repetiteur/coach for Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid’s The Shell Trial, Brown’s third production and second world premiere with that company. He has also prepared the world premiere of Zauberland, written for Julia Bullock, and first performed at le Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, and he assisted Renée Fleming in the preparation of André Previn’s final work, Penelope, written for her and first performed at Tanglewood.

As a coach, Brown has prepared singers for performances of principal roles at many of the world’s major opera houses and festivals, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House, the
Wiener Staatsoper, the Salzburg Festival, and the Glyndebourne Festival, and for concert performances at the Venice Biennale, the Edinburgh International Festival, and the Proms.

Committed to the development of younger artists, Brown is on faculty at Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London where he teaches pianists, coaches singers, and has curated several innovative song projects. He was Visiting Professor of Collaborative Piano at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and has held multiple residencies as a guest artist at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. His students have won the Gerald Moore Award and the Pianist’s Prize at the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards and have also earned places on young-artist programmes at international opera houses, including the Bayerische Staatsoper. Beginning in summer 2024, he will lead the resident artist program of the Lakes Area Music Festival in Minnesota.

Raised in Kentucky, Brown studied at Yale, the New England Conservatory, and Juilliard. He won prizes for music and poetry at Yale, the Henri Kohn Memorial Award from Tanglewood, and
Juilliard’s Richard F. French Prize for his doctoral dissertation on the life and music of Gustav Holst.