Sketch: Anne Sofie von Otter

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Award-winning Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter’s repertoire encompasses lieder, operas, oratorios and rock and pop songs. Her busy concert career has brought her regularly to the major halls of Europe and North America.

At this year’s Grammy Awards, Anne won for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album with Douce France on Nai’ve Classique. This was her second Grammy, having won in 2004 for Best Classical Vocal Performance. She ahas received numerous nominations.

In 1995 she was appointed Hovsangerska by the King of Sweden which is literally ‘Court Singer’ – a title awarded by the Swedish monarch to a singer who has contributed to the International standing of Swedish singing.

Last month Anne made an anticipated return to the Royal Opera House as Leokadja Begbick in John Fulljames’ new production of The Rise and Fall of The City of Mahogany under conducter Mark Wigglesworth.

“Anne Sofie von Otter sings and struts splendidly as the widow Begbik” wrote William Hartston in the Express. She sings, struts and signs splendidly, ‘graphing my sketch after her final performance last week.

Drawing: Christine Rice

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Christine Rice

Olivier nominated British mezzo-soprano Christine Rice is one of the leading operatic performers of her generation, regularly appearing in all the major venues across Europe, including Covent Garden, The Frankfurt Opera, The Teatro Real in Madrid, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and also the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Christine intended to follow a career in science like her chemistry lecturer father. She studied physics at Balliol College, Oxford, but her Doctorate was interrupted by a gap tar at the Royal Northern College of Music and her career path took a musical turn.

Since then she’s played a variety of roles, such as a vile punk brat in drag or a a Nero in Handel’s Agrippina, snorting ice sugar representing cocaine and wearing a prosthetic male appendage during one of her virtuoso arias to the sex starved Concepcion of Ravels’ one act farce L’Henre Espagnole, to name only two extremes. She’s also played Carmen and is notable for her Handelian roles such as Rinaldo, Arsace and Ariodante.

Christine has just finished Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s impassioned operatic satire on consumerism, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany at the Royal Opera House where she played a prostitute, Jenny, of which The Guardian’s Andrew Clements said, “The tart with at least a semblance of a heart is totally convincing.”

Christine signed this sketch of her in the role and also sent me a nice note, loving the drawing, which is always gratefully received.

Drawing: Venera Gimadieva

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Venera Gimadieva

Hailed as the star of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, young Russian opera singer Venera Gimadieva is one of the most sought after sopranos in Europe.

This sketch is based on Venera in the role of Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata at Glyndebourne Opera House in East Sussex, England in July 2014. It followed her UK debut at the 2013 BBC Proms.

Guardian critic Andrew Clements wrote, “She is a soprano of huge presence, compelling to watch with a voice of thrilling security and a special quality to her quieter singing that makes you hang on every note.”

Venera joined conductor Guerassim Voronkov and the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra for a celebration of recent works by composers from Tatarstan alongside masterpieces by Tatar descent Sergey Rachmaninoff at the Royal Festival Hall last week, where she took time to sign the drawing.

Signed sketches: Khatia Buniatishvili

Posted on April 4, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Khatia B 2

Paris-based Georgian virtuoso pianist Khatia Buniatishvili has enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame in the music world and is considered one of the great and certainly popular concert performers of our time, with her electrifying stage presence.

The 27 year old has introduced to the piano at an early age by her mother and her extraordinary talent was soon recognised. She gave her debut performance as a soloist with a chamber orchestra at the age of 6 in her hometown of Tbilisi, although she did not regard herself as child prodigy.

Winner of the bronze medal at the 12th Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition in 2008, Khatia was also recognised as the Best Performer of a Chopin piece and the Audience Favourite.

Critics emphasise that her playing style, which is influenced by Georgian Folk music, has an aura of elegant solitude and even melancholy. Khatia sees this as a positive attribute. “The piano is the blackest instrument… a symbol of minimal solitude,” she said.

In his five star review in the Evening Standard of Khatia’s recent London recital, Barry Millington, under the headline “heart-melting, hair-raising and utterly intoxicating, ” said, “there are performers who exploit extremes of dynamic and tempo, but musically fail to convince. The Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili is emphatically not one of those. She demonstrated keyboard magic of exceptional sensitivity… and jaw-dropping virtuoso technique.”

After that performance at Wigmore Hall last Wednesday evening I met the charismatic and charming Khatia at the artist’s entrance. We managed to find some shelter from the persistent drizzle under the doorway where she signed a couple of sketches with her distinctive flowing ribbon signature and kind comments for me.

khatia b

Sketch: The late, great Johnny Dankworth

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

I had the privilege of meeting British musical legend Johnny Dankworth and his wife Cleo Laine when they visited my hometown of Invercargill in southern New Zealand in 1994. I drew this black biro sketch, which he really liked, and he happily signed it for me. I gave him the original.

Knighted in 2006, Sir John Phillip William Dankworth was considered a pioneer of modern jazz and leading composer of film music. A superb instrumentalist, Johnny was one of the first British musicians to witness and then to explore the new avant-garde style of jazz, bebop, that emerged from New York after the Second World War.

He established The Stables at Wavendon, a charity that has provided education and opportunity for generations of young musicians. He also instigated the Jazz Course at the Royal Academy of Music, an area of study common in such institutions now, but highly controversial in classical circles at the time. As Johnny put it, “to say that jazz was divided about the validity and desirability of bebop would be seriously understating the case. It would be like saying that Americans were a tiny bit cross with the Japanese after Pearl Harbour”.

Sir John passed away in 2010 aged 82. His final appearance on the stage was a solo performance for the London Jazz Festival at the Royal Albert Hall in December 2009, playing his sax form a wheelchair.

Drawing: Ronan Keating in Once at the Phoenix Theatre

Posted on December 10, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

ronan keating

Last month Irish singer and former Boyzone front man Ronan Keating took over the role of ‘Guy’ from David Hunter in the Olivier and Tony award winning musical Once at the Phoenix Theatre in London.

He is the fourth ‘Guy’ in the West End production and is scheduled to perform the role until March next year when the show will close.

Based on the much loved Oscar winning film, Once tells the story of an Irish busker and a young Czech mother who meet through a shared love of music.

Drawing: Tony Bennett

Posted on October 6, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The eighty eight year old artist formerly known as Anthony Dominick ‘Tony’ Benedetto is the now known as the legendary Tony Bennett – one of the greatest entertainers over the past six decades. Winner of 17 Grammys and two Emmys, Frank Sinatra once said of him, “for my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business.”

He’s also a successful painter under his family name ‘Benedetto’. In fact he paints or sketches every day. His work, mostly in the Impressionist style, is exhibited in numerous galleries around the world and in international art publications.

“I’ve never worked a day in my life because I love what I do,” he told ABC News. “I sing and I paint. And I do that every day.”

He made history this week by becoming the oldest artist (musical, that is) with a number one on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart, with Lady Gaga and their tandem jazz disc Cheek To Cheek. He drew a nude sketch of her for his Duets II album, which was auctioned for charity.

Tony signed my sketch with his stage name, while performing at London’s Royal Festival Hall last month.

Drawing: Joan Baez

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Joan Baez is the world’s best known female folk singer. She defined the American folk music boom in the 1960s, has influenced nearly every aspect of popular music ever since, and is still going strong. Being a life long pacifist and activist gives greater meaning to her music and lyrics.

“You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die, or when. You can only decide how you’re going to live”.

In a Guardian interview in 2006 by her own admission she only had two real hits; ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ and ‘Diamonds and Rust’ but the music was always less important to her than the message, since walking on stage at the Newport Folk Festival in 1959 as an 18 year old. Since then she has not been in entertaining people so much as moving them, making them feel “true to the spirit of the times”. Early in her career she played traditional folk music, adding political songs to her repertoire during the 1960s decade of civil rights, advocating peace during the Vietnam War and social change. “I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace. I was trying to disturb the war”

Joan played London’s Royal Albert Hall for four nights last week in what reviewers called, “a remarkable show that earned her a standing ovation”. I grew up listening to her music on the ‘wireless’ and my parents’ vinyl 45s . I was a nice moment to finally meet her. Most performers arrive at the Artists’ Entrance in flash, chauffeur driven cars, Joan arrived in a cab. When I asked her if she wouldn’t mind signing my sketch she looked at it and said, “you’ve been busy”. Not half as busy as her and she’s still going strong.

Drawing: John Williams

Posted on July 1, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The world’s most celebrated guitarist, the brilliant, Grammy Award winning Australian John Williams played the Royal Festival Hall in London earlier this month, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Described by guitar historian Graham Wade as, “perhaps the most technically accomplished guitarist the world has seen.” John’s technique is universally considered flawless.

His career has spanned six decades and although he is best known for his classical work, he has explored different musical genres, including the acclaimed classical rock fusion duet with Peter Townshend of The Who for the 1979 Amnesty International benefit show The Secret Policeman’s Ball.

Drawing: Melanie Chisholm in Blood Brothers at the Phoenix Theatre

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Sporty Spice, Mel C, Melanie C or Melanie Jayne Chisholm as her parents called her, has sold more than 12 million records as a solo artist and over 100 million with the Spice Girls. She is second on the list of No.1 singles for a female artist in the UK. She is also the only female to reach No.1 as part of a quartet, a quintet, a duo and a solo.

In 2009 Melanie performed the role of Mrs Johnstone for six months in the musical Blood Brothers by Willy Russell in London’s Phoenix Theatre and was nominated for Best Actress in a musical at the 2010 Olivier Awards. She won a WhatsOnStage Award in 2013 for her portrayal of Mary Magdalen in the UK arena tour of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.

I met Mel at the Phoenix Theatre stage door in December 2009. She was brilliant – bright and bubbly – with everyone and took the time to chat to the gathered admirers.