James Gilchrist ( tenor) Anna Tilbrook (piano)

Sunday 15 November 2026, 3.00pm

Programme

Songs by Britten and Schubert

About

James Gilchrist

A master of English music, Gilchrist has performed Benjamin Britten’s Church Parables in St Petersburg, London and at the Aldeburgh Festival, Nocturne with the NHK Symphony in Tokyo and War Requiem with the San Francisco Symphony and the National Youth Orchestra of Germany.

He has performed the role of Rev. Adams in Britten’s Peter Grimes with the Bergen Philharmonic conducted by Edward Gardner at the Edinburgh Festival, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Grieghallen and Den Norske Opera, as well as in Deborah Warner’s award-winning production at the Opéra de Paris, Teatro Real Madrid and Opera di Roma. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and the St John and St Matthew Passion feature prominently in Gilchrist’s schedule, and he is celebrated as perhaps the finest Evangelist of his generation; as one review noted, “he hasn’t become a one-man Evangelist industry by chance”.

As an established recitalist, Gilchrist continues to expand his work, especially through his collaboration with pianist Anna Tilbrook with whom he has performed for more than 25 years. Their significant discography includes song cycles by Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann, Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge and Songs of Travel, and songs by Sir Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten, John Jeffreys and Roger Quilter.

Gilchrist opens his 2025/26 season with a performance of Britten’s War Requiem at the Phoenix Hall, Hiroshima Peace Park with the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gavin Carr to mark the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city. Further concert highlights include Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Handel’s Messiah with Polyphony and The Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Stephen Layton at London’s St John’s Smith Square, Evangelist in performances of Bach’s St Matthew Passion with both the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jan Willem de Vriend and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome conducted by Riccardo Minasi. Opera highlights include returns to the Royal Ballet & Opera, Covent Garden as Rev. Adams in Deborah Warner’s production of Peter Grimes conducted by Jakub Hrůša and to Garsington Opera as Eumete in Monteverdi's Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria directed by John Caird and conducted by Laurence Cummings. He also appears in recital in the UK with Anna Tilbrook and Ben Goldscheider

Anna Tilbrook

Born in Hertfordshire, Anna Tilbrook studied music at York University and with Julius Drake at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she was a major prize winner. She has quickly become one of Britain’s most exciting young pianists, with a considerable reputation in song recitals and chamber music, having made her debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1999. She has collaborated with such leading singers as James Gilchrist, Lucy Crowe, Sarah Tynan, Willard White, Barbara Bonney, Mark Padmore, Stephan Loges, Ian Bostridge and Gillian Keith. For Welsh National Opera she has accompanied Angela Gheorghiu, José Carreras and Bryn Terfel in televised concerts, and over several years has been associated with the Two Moors Festival in Devon, programming comprehensive surveys of the song cycles of Schubert, Schumann and Mahler. Enjoying partnerships with a number of instrumentalists, she has performed Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du Temps at St David’s Hall, Cardiff, and with the Fitzwilliam String Quartet has played chamber music by Shostakovich, a chamber arrangement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto, KV 415 and Elgar’s Piano Quintet throughout the UK. Recently she has given recitals at LSO St Luke’s, the Three Choirs Festival, Oxford Lieder Festival, and the festivals Wratislavia Cantans in Wroclaw and Anima Mundi in Pisa. In 2006 Anna Tilbrook made her conducting debut at the Buxton Festival directing Telemann’s Pimpinone from the harpsichord.