Kate Symonds-Joy
Artist Reviews
I've seen some gripping performances of Carmen, but not one like this. Some terrific professional singers - notably Kate Symonds-Joy - taunting and tempestuous in the title role.
The sheer expressivity was profound. In the most intimate moment in the whole Mass, the Agnus Dei, one felt mezzo-soprano Kate Symonds-Joy communicating the deep pathos of the words with complete emotional nakedness.
Biography
Kate Symonds-Joy graduated with a First Class music degree from Cambridge University and a DipRAM from the Royal Academy Opera Course.
Concert highlights include Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Sydney Opera House, Ravel’s Chansons Madecasses at the Purcell Room, Rutter’s Feel the Spirit at the Barbican, Bach’s St John Passion in the Aldeburgh Festival, Mahler’s Symphony no.2 at Cadogan Hall, Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, Handel’s Messiah with Bordeaux Opera and at Birmingham Symphony Hall, Mozart’s Requiem with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Elgar’s Sea Pictures with Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra, and Verdi’s Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall.
Kate has sung Berio’s Sequenza III and Berberian Stripsody for nonclassical, Berio Folksongs with the Psappha Ensemble and cycled to the most northerly inhabited part of the UK to sing Judith Weir’s King Harald’s Saga in the Shetland Islands’ Muckleflugga lighthouse. Operatic roles include Mrs Herring in Aldeburgh, Noye’s Fludde in Westminster Cathedral, and Wild Girl in A Village Romeo & Juliet for Wexford. Kate also joined The Prison Choir Project to sing the role of Carmen with a chorus of inmates in Dartmoor and Wandsworth Prisons.
Kate sings regularly as a core member of Solomon’s Knot Baroque Collective, making their Wigmore Hall debut with Bach’s St John Passion in April. Kate recorded a CD of Robin Holloway’s Song Cycles for Delphian, and also appears as soloist on Giles Swayne’s Stabat Mater (NAXOS), Strauss’ Deutsche Motette (Delphian), Villa Lobos’ Magnificat for Contraltino and Choir (Delphian) and Bach’s B minor mass (Sir John Eliot Gardiner/SDG).
Kate teaches the choral scholars of both Gonville and Caius College and St John’s Voices, Cambridge. Future projects include a Proms debut singing Bach Cantatas with Solomon’s Knot and Elgar’s Sea Pictures with Christopher Robinson and the RPO.
For Oratorio and Concert repertoire please scroll down:
| Oratorio and concert rep | |
| Composer | Work |
| Bach J.S. | B Minor Mass |
| Cantatas (various) | |
| Christmas Oratorio (all parts) | |
| Magnificat | |
| St John Passion | |
| St Matthew Passion | |
| Berlioz | Les Nuits D’ete |
| Bliss | Pastorale |
| Beethoven | Mass in C |
| Missa Solemnis | |
| Symphony No 9 | |
| Bernstein | Jeremiah Symphony |
| Brahms | Alto Rhapsody |
| Britten | Ceremony of Carols |
| Rejoice in the Lamb | |
| Bruckner | Te Deum |
| Copland | Old American Songs with orchestra |
| Durufle | Requiem |
| Dvorak | Stabat Mater |
| Elgar | Dream of Gerontius |
| Sea Pictures | |
| The Music Makers | |
| Handel | Dixit Dominus |
| Esther | |
| Israel in Egypt | |
| Jeptha | |
| Messiah | |
| Semele | |
| Haydn | Masses |
| Stabat Mater | |
| Jenkins | Stabat Mater |
| Lambert | The Rio Grande |
| Mahler | Symphony no. 2 |
| Mendelssohn | Elijah |
| Mozart | Requiem |
| Vespers | |
| Rachmaninov | Vespers |
| Rossini | Petite Messe Solenelle |
| Stabat Mater | |
| Rutter | Feel the Spirit |
| Schubert | Masses |
| Schumann | Requiem |
| Tippett | A Child of Our Time |
| Verdi | Requiem |
| Vivaldi | Gloria |
| Stabat Mater | |