Royal Ballet Sinfonia, Maidavale Singers & Robin White
Biography Royal Ballet Sinfonia, Maidavale Singers & Robin White
Royal Ballet Sinfonia
Established in the early 1980s as the orchestra of Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, the orchestra of Birmingham Royal Ballet became the Royal Ballet Sinfonia when the dance company moved to Birmingham and became Birmingham Royal Ballet in 1990. Under music director Koen Kessels, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia is Britain’s busiest ballet orchestra. In addition to its role with Birmingham Royal Ballet, the orchestra performs for The Royal Ballet and tours with leading ballet companies including Paris Opéra Ballet, New York City Ballet and The Australian Ballet and, more recently, Het Nationale Ballet, Queensland Ballet and Acosta Danza. The Sinfonia has performed with the National Opera Studio and Opera North, and for the Voices of Black Opera competition.
Recordings include the ballets Far from the Madding Crowd, Edward II and Cyrano and Edward Loder’s opera Raymond and Agnes. The orchestra performed Stephen Montague’s The King Dances in the 2015 BBC4 documentary The King Who Invented Ballet.
The Maida Vale Singers
was formed in 1999 to provide a chorus for Covent Garden Festival’s performance of Side by Side by Jerome Kern. Since then they have performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra, LSO, London Pops Orchestra, RPO, Royal Ballet Sinfonia, English National Ballet Orchestra, Fine Arts Sinfonia, and The John Wilson Orchestra.
They have backed Frank Sinatra at The Waldorf Hotel (to launch the musical Sinatra); Elaine Paige and John Barrowman at Birmingham Symphony Hall; and on the debut albums of Opera Babes (SONY) and Nicky Spence (UNIVERSAL). Other recordings include: Menna (BBC), Napoleon, Man Of La Mancha, (TER), Trevor Nunn’s Porgy & Bess, That’s Entertainment (EMI), and the new musicals Nelson, and The Kitchen.
BBC Proms include: HMS Pinafore, OKLAHOMA! 60 Years of British Film Music, and the three highly successful proms with the John Wilson Orchestra; A Celebration of Classic MGM Film Musicals, A Celebration of Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Hooray For Hollywood.
A collection of Russian sacred music, featuring new choral settings of well-known themes by Borodin. In the manner of Lux Aeterna (from Elgar’s Nimrod) and Barber’s Agnus Dei (his own original version of the Adagio for Strings), Robin White has set the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, plus verses from Psalm 101, to three of Borodin’s best tunes, in a way that sounds wholly natural and convincing.
These are coupled with a selection of the best original anthems by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and some lesser-known but very worthy contemporaries.
Robin White
trained at Imperial College and the Royal College of Music in London, studying conducting with Vernon Handley and orchestration with Bryan Kelly.
In a varied music career, Robin conducted many orchestras and ensembles, particularly in open-air, pop-classics concerts at National Trust properties and similar venues across the south of England and the midlands.
With the Philharmonia of Bristol in the 1980s, he worked with soloists such as John Lill, Robert Tear, Alexander Baillie and Emma Johnson, in major concertos and other repertoire works. Apart from its own promotions in Bristol & Bath, the orchestra was featured in the Stroud Festival and at Stourhead Gardens in Wiltshire, beginning the National Trust connection.
His recording for Chandos in 1992 of Edwardian light music with his own Southern Festival Orchestra was played extensively on Classic FM. This led to an invitation from Silva Classics to record Noel Coward’s original ballet scores with the City of Prague Philharmonic. Subsequent recordings include ‘Music for a Royal Wedding’ and ‘The Perfect Fool’ for Classic Fox Records, and ‘Nunc Dimittis’ (Russian sacred choral music) for Claudio Records.
He worked extensively with choirs, and appeared with members of his own Alban Voices in a pivotal episode of the British TV soap opera EastEnders in December 2002.
As an arranger, his work has been broadcast by BBC orchestras on Radio 2 light-music programmes, and featured by the Australian Pops Orchestra in a live concert in Melbourne.
