Singers audition and promotion opportunities at the Oxford Castle
Opera Anywhere are pleased to be working with Oxford Castle to provide live entertainment in the castle market square during the summer evenings. There are opportunities for singers to provide popular operatic entertainment to visitors and guests of the many restuarants that operate in the square during the evenings. Singers must be prepared to provide their own backing tracks on cd or IPOD and will be expected to perform for a minimum of 30 minutes. The singer will benefit from collecting financial contributions from passers by and the restaurant customers but will be expected to pass 20% to Opera Anywhere who hold the licence and operate the insurance for the performance area. This is a great opportunity for solo singers to audition for Opera Anywhere for its future performances, we perform throughout the year in many and varied situations, not just full productions but also for private events, corporate entertainment and for our unique boating opera trips.
Dates available: Thursday 5th August, Saturday 14th August, Friday 20th August and Saturday 28th August, we have 30 minute slots available each evening from 6pm
To apply for a busking slot at Oxford Castle please send your cv, biog and image to Opera Anywhere, email only.
Our Singers
Mike Woodward - Tenor
Vanessa Woodward - Contralto
Jeremy Vinogradov - Baritone
Amy Webber - Soprano
Gina Watson - Soprano
Mike Woodward - Tenor
With his wife Vanessa, Mike set up Opera Anywhere in 2000 and regularly performs opera and oratorio.
Mike studies singing with Quentin Hayes and has also benefited from the wisdom and experience of experts in their field such as: Charles Corp; Lena Phillips; Henry Herford; Adrian Thompson; Robin Bowman; Richard Jackson; Prof Sue McCulloch; Catherine Wyn-Rogers and James Gillchrist. Mike particularly enjoys English Song, especially the music of Finzi, Gurney and Milford, he has recently performed song recitals featuring Finzi's settings of Thomas Hardy poems. His recent Oratorio engagements have included Stainer's Crucifixion, Handel's Messiah, Mendelssohn's Elijah and Haydn's Nelson Mass.
Mike's opera roles include 'Kaspar' in 'Amahl and the night visitors' (Menotti); various Gilbert & Sullivan roles; 'Rinuccio' in 'Gianni Schicchi' (Puccini) and 'Camille in 'The Merry Widow' (Lehar) and regularly performs popular tenor repertoire in various concerts including last year's 'Arias On Ice'.
Mike and Vanessa both appeared in a channel 4 TV documentary recently, with the renowned music presenter Harvey Goldsmith. Harvey has taken an interest in Opera Anywhere as part of a series of 'trouble shooter' type programmes focused on the entertainment business.
Vanessa Woodward - Contralto
Vanessa studied at Colchester School of Music and gained an advance postgraduate diploma (voice) from Trinity College of Music where she was awarded the 'Wilfred Greenhouse prize for Oratorio and Cantata', Vanessa now studies singing with Quentin Hayes. Vanessa's early professional career was as a singer / guitarist in rock and folk bands, she has now 'crossed over' and has resumed her classical singing career.
Vanessa is an experienced Oratorio soloist and has performed alto solos in most mainstream works and some new works too such as Simon Speare's 'The Angels' performed at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, Vanessa also enjoys performing Lieder and 20th Century British Song.
Most recently on the operatic stage Vanessa has performed the roles of the 'Princess' in Puccini's 'Sister Angelica' and 'Popova' in 'The Bear' by Walton which included an appearance on Sean Rafferty's 'In Tune' programme on BBC Radio Three, 'Baba' in Menotti's 'The Medium' and 'Miss Baggot' in Britten's 'The Little Sweep'. Vanessa is co-founder and director of Opera Anywhere and is the Artistic Director of the Sunningwell Music & Arts Festival.
Vanessa has recently Premièred 'A Passage Of Life' by Anthony Gracie, for contralto and orchestra and performed recitals of Brahms and Vaughan Williams songs.
Jeremy Vinogradov - Baritone
Jeremy Vinogradov studied in Australia, and on scholarship at the Vienna Konservatorium. Since in the UK he has worked with British Youth Opera, Birmingham, D'Oyly Carte and Carl Rosa Opera Companies, Grange Park Opera and Kentish Opera. Operatic roles include Albert Werther, Falke Die Fledermaus, Giuseppe The Gondoliers, Mr Gedge Albert Herring, Papageno Die Zauberflöte, Silvio Pagliacci, Hugh Evans Sir John in Love and Yamadori Madama Butterfly.
On the concert platform he has been bass soloist in Messiah with the London Mozart Players, and has recorded Schumann's Liederkreis Op 39 for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He has performed in recital at St Martin-in-the-Fields, St James's Piccadilly and Leeds City Art Gallery, as well as at Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin Universities and at the Fairfield Hall, Croydon.
Jeremy has sung in Storace's Equivoci at the Batignano Festival in Italy, Pallante Agrippina for The Early Opera Company, Guglielmo Così fan tutte for Pimlico Opera, Morales for Columbia Artists' US tour of Carmen and Baron Douphol La traviata and Don Giovanni for English Touring Opera. He has most recently sung at the Longborough Festival, and at the Opera! Festival in Zeist, the Netherlands as Mozart's Count and Don Giovanni. Earlier this year Jeremy sang Danilo The Merry Widow for Opera South East, for whom he also performed the Learned Judge Trial by Jury and Aeneas Dido and Aeneas. This summer he sang Dr Caius in Surrey Opera's The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Amy Webber - Soprano
Amy studied with Rebecca Moseley-Morgan from the age of 13 and is now studying with Peter Wilson in her second at The Royal Northern College of Music.Her first opera role, at the age of 14, was as the Dew Fairy in Huperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel with Opera Festa. Shortly after, she won first prize in the Oxford Music Festival, ‘light opera category’. With Oxford Girls’ Choir, directed by Richard Vendome, Amy has performed in Venice and Malta as well as doing concerts around England, including in the House of Lords. Amy played the part of Dido in Dido and Aneas (Purcell) with the Choir in 2007. In 2008, as head girl, she gave a solo recital at the Hollywell Music Room, Oxford.Amy has also been involved in many productions with Opera Anywhere. Roles include: Gherardina and Novia in Gianni Schicchi and Sister Angelica (Puccini), The Governess in The Little Sweep (Britten), The Knave in Curiouser and Curiouser (Gilbert and Sullivan revival of Alice in Wonderland). Whilst at the RNCM, Amy has sung in the chorus for Die Fledermaus (Johann Strauss), Candide (Bernstein), La Belle Helene (Offenbach) and La Clemenza di Tito (Mozart).In Ocober 2009, Amy gave a solo recital in Gozo, Malta as part of the Festival Mediterranea. Later, in December she played the part of The Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors (Menotti) in the RNCM Concert Hall with The Manchester Consort.
Gina Watson - Soprano
Gina completed her postgraduate studies at Trinity College of Music where she graduated with the highest award, a Post Graduate Advanced Diploma in Singing, and a Fellowship from Trinity College London in Performance (Voice) in June 2006. Gina previously studied at CM London where she was awarded the Diploma in Music Tutoring (Distinction) and the University of Hull where she graduated with a Joint Honors’ Degree in Drama and Italian.
Companies Gina has performed with include Opera Holland Park, Runaway Opera, Wimbledon Light Operatic Society and The Bold Balladiers in London, Opera Anywhere in Oxford and Saltwood and Hythe and Folkestone Choral Societies in Kent.
Full operatic roles include Sextus in Julius Caesar (Handel), Gretel in Hansel and Gretel (Humperdinck), Josephine in HMS Pinnafore, Mabel in Pirates of Penzance, Phyllis in Iolanthe, Elsie in The Yeoman of the Guard (Sullivan), Maria in The Dancing Years (Novello) and Belinda in Dido and Aeneas (Purcell). Other roles studied include The Flight Controller in Flight (Dove), Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro and Despina in Cosi fan Tutte (Mozart). Solo concerts include recitals in Yorkshire, London and Kent.
In addition to classical singing, Gina has also sung with folk fusion group Izbuha and electronic music producers Jardin and Ajanta Music. Performances include gigs in Ibiza and London and the Sunrise Festival in Glastonbury. Gina is the singer on Ajanta Music’s latest album, “Above the Cloudline”, released in Autumn 2009. Gina continues her vocal studies in London with Anita Morrison.
