Launching Kings Place’s year-long Earth Unwrapped series, Festival Voices collaborate with Sacconi Quartet in a rare opportunity to hear Terry Riley's masterful Sun Rings performed live. A vibrant collaboration of sound, inspiration, and celebration.
Sacconi Quartet
Festival Voices
Conductor - Gregory Batsleer
A new musical stagework reimagining a unique and significant moment in literary and personal history - the meeting between popular 19th-century authors Hans Christian Andersen and Charles Dickens.
Set in Dickens' home at Gadshill Place, Kent in the summer of 1857, Tinderbox is an exploration of friendship, creativity, domestic tension and feeling, wrapped in the magic of storytelling and music.
Charles Dickens - Oskar McCarthy
Hans Christian Andersen - Laurence Panter
Catherine Dickens - Sarah Borges
Kate Dickens - Kariina Gretere
Composer - Stephen Guy Daltry
Librettist - Maureen Thomas
Oskar returns to MK Chorale to sing the baritone solos in Orff’s Carmina Burana.
What happens to an artist's work after their death? Who controls the narrative?
Wahnfried begins with the death of Richard Wagner and spans forty years of history. We witness the Wagner family's determination to construct the myth of the composer, their brutal infighting and their disturbing political affiliations, reflecting the wider crisis in German politics in the first three decades of the twentieth century.
This major new opera by the Israeli-born composer Avner Dorman, with a libretto by acclaimed German playwrights Lutz Hübner and Sarah Nemitz, will receive its UK premiere at Longborough in 2025. The world premiere was presented alongside the Karlsruhe Ring in 2017 and was nominated for a prestigious International Opera Award in the Best New Opera category.
Houston Chamberlain - Mark Le Brocq
Cosima Wagner - Susan Bullock
Der Meistejunger - David Horton
Wagner-dæmon - Oskar McCarthy
Rest of cast TBA
Conductor - Justin Brown
Director - Polly Graham
5:00pm 27, 29 May + 10, 12, 14 June
What was a night of music theatre like in nineteenth-century Paris? Join us as we explore the French vaudeville, a major landmark in theatre history and grandfather of the modern musical.
If you, too, love a show, come along and dive into the theatre world of nineteenth-century Paris, hear stories of the stage from theatre historians from Durham and Newcastle, and enjoy performances of vaudeville’s top hits by professional singers and the Tyne Youth Company theatre group.
Baritone - Oskar McCarthy
Presenters - Katherine Hambridge, Sophie Horrocks, Hannah Scott.
Puccini’s classic brought roaring into the 21st Century in a reimagined chamber orchestration and English libretto by writer Hannah Kumari and composer Vahan Salorian. Developed through artist-led workshops, this Schicchi is scored for a cast of highly skilled actor instrumentalists and opera singers, putting all performers at the very heart of the storytelling.
The production will tour to mid-scale spaces in early 2026 alongside with a newly commissioned spoken word comic prologue commissioned in partnership with ArtfulScribe.
Oskar performs the London premiere of Laura Bowler’s Lines, Letters and Disinformation, a new ten-minute music theatre work for baritone and electronics as part of VOICEBOX: SHOWCASE.
The cohort of six singers making up the inaugural VOICEBOX cohort gather one last time to share a programme of solo and ensemble works. Details on the Cafe OTO website.
Oskar is grateful to the Michael Cuddigan Trust, The Finzi Trust, SPIN Labs, Hinrichsen Foundation and Vaughan Williams Foundation for their support in the commissioning of Lines, Letters and Disinformation.
Oskar performs the world premiere of Laura Bowler’s Lines, Letters and Disinformation, a new ten-minute music theatre work for baritone and electronics, alongside Iannis Xenakis’ Pour Maurice, as part of VOICEBOX: UNBOUND.
UNBOUND is a showcase for the six singers making up the inaugural cohort of the year-long VOICEBOX project for advanced singers specialising in contemporary vocal performance, led by Juliet Fraser.
Having begun the year at Britten Pears Arts in September 2023 the cohort returns to share a thrilling array of solo and ensemble works, including six world premieres. More details on the Britten Pears website.
Oskar is grateful to the Michael Cuddigan Trust, The Finzi Trust, SPIN Labs, Hinrichsen Foundation and Vaughan Williams Foundation for their support in the commissioning of Lines, Letters and Disinformation.
Oskar makes his debut with Birmingham Opera Company in the first staged performances of Tippett’s New Year since 1990.
Performances will take place in The Dream Tent at Smithfield, Birmingham City Centre on the following dates:
Sunday 7th July 2024, 7.30pm
Tuesday 9th July 2024, 7.30pm
Wednesday 10th July 2024, 7.30pm
Friday 12th July 2024, 7.30pm
Saturday 13th July 2024, 7.30pm
Further details available here.
CAST
From Somewhere and Today
JO ANN - Francesca Chiejina
DONNY - Sakiwe Mkosana
NAN - Sarah Pring
From Nowhere and Tomorrow
MERLIN - Lucia Lucas
PELEGRIN - Joshua Stewart
REGAN - Samantha Crawford
Outside the Action
PRESENTERS - Grace Durham, Oskar McCarthy
Alongside the awesome Birmingham Opera Company Chorus and Actors, and CBSO.
DIRECTOR – Keith Warner
CONDUCTOR – Alpesh Chauhan OBE
DESIGNER – Nicky Shaw
Oskar produces and performs in the opening of Bold Tendencies 2024 Communion programme.
More than 190 singers from Festival Voices, Citizens of the World Choir, London Youth Choirs, London Gay Men's Chorus, London International Gospel Choir & The Bold Chorus join forces in a monumental celebration of song.
Featuring two world premieres - Songs of Communion by Kristina Arakelyan , a new commission setting texts by bell hooks and Langston Hughes for massed voices, and Mozart Requiem Remixed, FV’s reimagining of Mozart’s choral masterpiece for choir, orchestra and electronics.
VOICEBOX is a brand-new initiative offering a bespoke curriculum for advanced singers specialising in contemporary vocal performance. The programme has been designed and is led by Juliet Fraser. It is delivered over the course of a year (2023-4), broken into four intensive residency periods hosted by partner organisations around the UK.
More information available on the VOICEBOX website.
Oskar sings the baritone solos in Mendelssohn’s Elijah.
Conductor - Jonathan Rathbone
VOICEBOX is a brand-new initiative offering a bespoke curriculum for advanced singers specialising in contemporary vocal performance. The programme has been designed and is led by Juliet Fraser. It is delivered over the course of a year (2023-4), broken into four intensive residency periods hosted by partner organisations around the UK.
More information available on the VOICEBOX website.
Oskar sings the bass solos in two performances of Handel’s Messiah at Waterperry House.
Conductor - Bertie Baigent
Cecilia McDowall’s Da Vinci Requiem
Soprano - Katy Thomson
Baritone - Oskar McCarthy
Conductor - Mark Jordan
Piano - Alex Aitken
MK Chorale
11th, 15th, 17th, 19th November
Oskar sings the role of Peter in four performances of Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel.
Director - Jeanne Pansard-Besson
Conductor - Thomas Payne
Ensemble: HIS MAJESTY'S SAGBUTTS AND CORNETTS, LEADING BAROQUE INSTRUMENTALISTS
Soloists: ANA BEARD FERNANDEZ, THOMAS KELLY, CHRIS FITZGERALD-LOMBARD, BEN MCKEE, OSKAR MCCARTHY
Conductor: GREGORY BATSLEER
Choirs: HCS, HCS YOUTH CHOIRS, HCS VOICES
VOICEBOX is a brand-new initiative offering a bespoke curriculum for advanced singers specialising in contemporary vocal performance. The programme has been designed and is led by Juliet Fraser. It is delivered over the course of a year (2023-4), broken into four intensive residency periods hosted by partner organisations around the UK.
More information available on the VOICEBOX website.
This is the first ever London staging of Madeleine Dring’s (1923 – 1977) only opera, ‘Cupboard Love’. Written in the early 50s, this work wasn’t performed until a read through in 1983 and it remained unpublished until 2017. A comedy murder ‘whodunit’, it features three characters – the Wife, the Boyfriend and the Husband. This year marks 100 years since Dring’s birth and therefore it seems the perfect time to ‘premiere’ this work especially given that she was a Londoner herself.
He: Oskar McCarthy
She: Sarah Dacey
It: Sam Oladeinde
Director: Sam Redway Wells
In 1983, Peter Tatchell stood as the Labour candidate for the seat of Bermondsey in the upcoming by-election. Following a bitter and fractious campaign that extensively targeted Tatchell’s gay rights advocacy and left-wing politics, the seat was won by Simon Hughes of the Liberal party (who himself came out in 2006) in what remains the largest swing of any by-election in British political history.
This new multi-media verbatim opera interrogates the personal and political impact of this campaign, and the long shadow it has cast on British politics, using the very words of those who lived through it. Following residencies at Snape Maltings in Aldeburgh and LOD muziektheater in Belgium, we are excited to present a full performance of ‘Bermondsey, 1983’ on the 40th anniversary of this infamous by-election.
Peter Tatchell: Arthur Bruce
Simon Hughes: Oskar McCarthy
Violin: Emily Earl
Music: Robert Reid Allan
Words: Gareth Mattey
Director: Sam Redway Wells
Enchanting Arias is a fun, interactive lunchtime concert presented by Royal Albert Hall in collaboration with OperaEd.
Soprano Susie Gibbons, mezzo-soprano Helen Maree Cooper, tenor Zahid Siddiqui, baritone Oskar McCarthy and pianist Ashley Beauchamp perform a selection of enchanting and wondrous arias from operas including Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel and Bizet’s Carmen.
Performances at 11:00am and 1:30pm
More details available on the RAH website.
Peter Rabbit's Musical Adventure is back at Waterperry, after sell-out runs in 2018 and 2019, offering a relaxed family-friendly experience interweaving the music of Haydn, played by string quartet, with narration of Potter’s classic tale. This feel-good production lasts 30 minutes and is perfect for children ages 0+ experiencing classical music for the first time.
More information at the festival website.
Performances on the 12th, 13th, 18th & 20th August at 1pm
Narrator - Oskar McCarthy
Director - Guy Withers
A History of Sound is Vache Baroque’s flagship education project for children aged 9 -11, an interactive, educational show, accompanied by hands-on workshops and cross-curricular resources, touring to schools in Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and London across 2023 – 2024.
More information at the VB website.
Co-devised and directed by
Paul O’Mahony
Co-devised and performed by
Oskar McCarthy
Gabriella Liandu
Betty Makharinsky
Jonathan Darbourne
Designer
Lizzy Leech
Chorus in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung at Longborough Festival Opera
Director: Amy Lane
Conductor: Anthony Negus
29, 31 May, 2, 4, 6 June 2023
Oskar returns to collaborate with the London Euphonia Orchestra and conductor Dario Peluso, with whom he performed Kindertotenlieder in 2016, to perform Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs.
The programme also includes Vaughan Williams' Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1 and Beethoven's 4th Symphony.
Oskar sings the bass solos in Schubert's Stabat Mater in F and Haydn's Heiligmesse.
Conductor - Patricia Williams
Oskar sings the bass solos in Handel’s Messiah.
Conductor - Johnny Kilhams
Oskar sings Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs and the bass solos in Haydn’s Nelson Mass.
Brockham Choral (choir)
British Sinfonietta (orchestra)
Cole Bendall (conductor)
Calling children aged 7 – 99 and their adults…
Join the Vache Baroque Festival for the very first performances of our interactive show all about SOUND!
We’ll be exploring sounds on planet earth from 4.5 billion years ago right up to the time of Bach. This is a first sharing of a show that will tour to schools in 2023 and beyond.
Co-devised and directed by
Paul O’Mahony
Co-devised and performed by
Oskar McCarthy
Gabriella Liandu
Betty Makharinsky
Jonathan Darbourne
Oskar sings the role of Adam in six world premiere performances of Bertie Baigent and Joe Winters’ adaptation of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Satan: Ella Taylor
Eve: Juliet Wallace
Adam: Oskar McCarthy
Belial: Rozanna Madylus
Beelzebub: Steven Fort
Conductor: Bertie Baigent
Director & Designer: Joseph Winters
Further details available on the Shipwright website.
Oskar sings the role of Ruggiero as a Longborough Festival Opera Emerging Artist.
CONDUCTOR / ARRANGER - YSHANI PERINPANAYAGAM
DIRECTOR - JENNY OGILVIE
Lyubov Petrova - soprano
Andrew Staples - tenor
Dietrich Henschel - baritone
Philharmonia Chorus
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
conducted by Vasily Petrenko
Royal Albert Hall, London
Oskar sings the baritone solos in Brahms’ Ein deutsches requiem and Dvorak’s Te Deum with Ilkley Choral Society.
Conductor - Jennifer Sterling
Oskar sings the part of Jesus in Bach's St John Passion
Conductor - Peter Fender
