Carolyn Sampson, soprano, with members of The King's Consort

Bedford Music Club

Bedford Music Club’s 50th season opens with a very special concert. Born in Bedford, Carolyn Sampson is now one of the world’s leading sopranos, equally at home on the concert and opera stages. It is hard to think of a better pairing than with members of The King’s Consort, one of the world’s leading baroque ensembles, directed by Robert King. Their programme brings together some of the best vocal music by Purcell and Handel, with chamber works by Vivaldi, Purcell and the lesser-known French composer Boismortier.

After performing a programme of The Genius of Purcell at Wigmore Hall last October with baroque ensemble The King's Consort, a reviewer wrote in Opera Today : "Sampson looked and sounded the epitome of elegance and expressiveness. Her smoothly polished soprano is a perfect fit for Purcell’s melodic fecundity. The tone was clear as a bell, the diction superb: the words seemed to float on the melody. And, the purity and easefulness of Sampson’s sound production is wonderfully suited to Purcell’s rhythmic shifts and quirks which were pliantly absorbed into the flowing phrases. Moreover, while Sampson’s tone is unblemished it is never colourless: she imbued the clean line with judicious expressive radiance."