The Telephone

Free admission | Donations welcome

Programme

Cabaret Songs – Benjamin Britten
Tell me the truth about love (sung by Robert)
Funeral Blues (sung by Robert)
Johnny (sung by Anna)
Calypso (sung by Anna)
Love Walked in – George Gershwin arr. Percy Grainger
Menotti – The Telephone

Artist Bios

Anna Cooper is a Swansea-born freelance solo and choral soprano based in London. Recent solo highlights include Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Vivaldi’s Gloria. She sings with prestigious London church choirs including St Bride’s Fleet Street, St Paul’s Cathedral, Temple, and Hampstead Parish Church. She has previously held scholarships at St Martin-in-the-Fields, St John’s Notting Hill, St James’s Piccadilly, and Hampstead Chamber Choir. Alongside her singing career, Anna works in music outreach and as a Vocal Massage Therapist. She came to the latter following surgery to correct a vocal injury. Determined to break down the stigma surrounding vocal health, she openly documented her recovery and continues to advocate for greater awareness of vocal wellbeing. She studied Music at the University of Cambridge, where she was a Choral Scholar, Musical Director of an a cappella group, and President of her College’s Music Society. Anna currently studies with Marie Vassiliou.

Hailing from Ripon in North Yorkshire, Robert is studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge where he was a member of the choirs of Fitzwilliam College and Selwyn College. He has since held choral scholarships at St Saviour’s church, Pimlico and St James’s Church in Piccadilly. He is currently a member of the chamber choir, Evoke. As a soloist he has performed works such as Vaughan-Williams’ Songs of Travel and Five Mystical songs, Stanford’s Songs of the Fleet and Stainer’s Crucifixion. He is also a keen stage performer, having started out his craft performing the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, with roles such as Strephon in Iolanthe, Bunthorne in Patience and The Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance. He has also stage directed for HMS Pinafore at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall, and wielded the conductor’s baton for Trial by Jury. Other operatic roles have included Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Salieri in Rimsky Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri and Belcore in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. Robert studies singing with Nick Powell and is preparing to start a master’s degree in Vocal Performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland this September.

A graduate of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Harrison Knights works across multiple roles in the arts. He is currently Associate Choral Director at St James’s Piccadilly and St Pancras, Euston Road. Previously he was Music Administrator at St Martin-in-the-Fields. As a Musical Director, he has worked on Vergil!, which was nominated for an ARIA award for best musical production and The Dead of Rannoch Moor both for Audible. His debut radio play, Requiem, aired on BBC Radio 4 in 2023 and was nominated for a Sandford St Martin Award. Harrison was also the Lead Vocalist and Musical Supervisor for the BAFTA award winning ADAM. Harrison works as a voice actor and audiobook narrator, with recent titles including the award-winning Our Mutual Friend for BBC Radio 4, Most Ardently, The Earl Meets His Match, A Hex for Hunger, and An Elixier for Wonderlust. As an associate director he has also worked on the London Palladium’s production of Once, and its subsequent tour of Asia as well as working alongside the directing department for Harry Potter & The Cursed Child in London’s West End. He has also directed productions of Pygmalion for Tethered Wits Theatre Company and composed the music for More Myself Than I am for the Edinburgh Fringe. Alongside this, he serves as an Inclusivity Coordinator for stage and screen, with credits including Netflix’s The Sandman, the upcoming Rebel Wilson film Girl Group and currently in production Majesty for ITV and Paramount.

Michael Haslam won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford and continued his studies at the GSMD. Michael has given recitals in London and Europe and the first performance of the Philip Marshall piano concerto in Lincoln Minster. He was a member of Commedia which won the Park Lane Group Young Musicians award. Michael was a member of Piano Circus, with whom he recorded Stravinsky’s Les Noces for Decca, with Vladimir Ashkenazy. He has performed with the ECO, the LCO and the RPO as orchestral pianist and continuo harpsichordist. He has conducted Barbara Hendricks and the Guildhall Strings in Salamanca and Constant Lambert’s Rio Grande for Egyptian TV. He has been Musical Director for many productions in London’s West End and the Royal National Theatre including Play Without Words (Olivier Award for Best Entertainment), Honk! The Ugly Duckling (Olivier Award for Best New Musical), and Maria Friedman’s one woman show By Extra Special Arrangement (Olivier Award for Best Entertainment). He also conducted the orchestra on Maria Friedman’s solo album for Carlton Records. For RADA he has been Musical Director for ten productions. Radio includes composing and performing the signature music for BBC Radio 4’s productions of Murder On The Orient Express and Sad Cypress, and composing incidental music for The Governor’s Consort by Peter Tinniswood (also for Radio 4). He featured as accompanist on the Words In Music BBC Radio 4 quiz show hosted by the late Denis Quilley. Michael was Musical Director and Arranger for a private theatrical entertainment for the late HM Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family at St. James’s Palace to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Coronation. He accompanied Maria Friedman for her residencies at The Carlyle in New York and was Pianist and Musical Director for Strange How Potent, an evening of Music Hall and Vaudeville songs starring Linda Thompson and Martha Wainwright at the Lyric, Hammersmith. Michael was the Musical Director for All The Angels—Handel and the First Messiah at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe, London.