User:Timrlewis/Jane Webster

Jane Webster
Jane Webster was born in London and started singing at the age of 5. At the age of 17 she studied for seven years at the Royal Academy of Music where she won several major singing prizes and was bestowed the Shinn Fellowship FRAM (Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music). She continued her studies in Switzerland privately, by personal invitation, with the distinguished Soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and subsequently in Chicago, gaining Scholarships from the Royal Society of Arts, the Worshipful Company of Musicians, and the Countess of Munster and Ian Fleming Trusts. She won the Ravensdale Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Competition, the International Woolwich Plc. Recital Competition, and the Young Concert Artists Trust Competition and was honoured to be chosen by the BBC as the English Representative for the prestigious “BBC Singer of the World Competition”.

Her Operatic engagements include over 25 Principal roles with companies throughout the UK and Europe. Her solo debut was as Lyric Soprano with Scottish Opera as ‘Countess’ in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and her solo debut for the Royal Opera Covent Garden was in Richard Strauss’ Elektra. An extensive Solo Concert and Oratorio repertoire has taken her to all the main UK and also London concert venues such as The Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, Wigmore Hall and the Barbican, St David’s Hall Cardiff, Leeds Castle, as well as the principal Cathedral Festivals in York, Bath, Chester and Liverpool and to several European Cities, as soloist with such Orchestras as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the RPO and the LSO. Jane has recorded for BBC Radio and Television, RTE and various recording companies and has recorded 5 vocal Albums.

Her career to this date had been mainly in the field of Opera, but she then made her London West End Debut in Andrew Lloyds Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, toured extensively World-wide with her solo Cabaret shows, and was regularly seen and heard on BBCTV and Radio becoming a regular Guest Artiste at Leeds City Varieties in the ever-popular Variety show The Good Old Days.

“Jane Webster’s singing is terrific!” The Stage.

In August 2004 Jane appeared as Solo Vocalist with the Bands of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces “Last Night of the Proms” at Kneller Hall in London to an audience of five and a half thousand people she also features on the new Cd “Kneller Hall Live” available from 2005.

In 2006, Jane joined the original cast of the new production of The Sound of Music in London’s West End at the London Palladium and until the show closed in Feb 2009. Jane appeared in almost 100 performances as The Mother Abbess.

Jane has appeared before Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, HRH Prince Charles and the late Diana Princess of Wales, Princess Alexandra and also the Duchess of Gloucester.

Most recent engagements include guest Soloist at the Fairfield Hall, Croydon for the Last Night of the Proms, performances of Verdi’s Requiem, an Opera Gala in St Peter Port Guernsey, performances at London’s Purcell Room, Victoria and Albert Museum, in Edinburgh and also Cambridge, and a joint recital performance in the presence of the Duke of Gloucester at the Livery Hall of the Drapers Hall in London, in aid of The Council for Music in Hospitals, and in Recital at the Purcell Room and the Middle Temple, Lincoln’s Inn. Recent Oratorio performances also include: A Sea Symphony (Liverpool Philharmonic Hall), A Child of our Time (Oxford Town Hall), Petit Messe Solennelle, St Paul, Brahms Requiem (Swansea/Brangwyn Hall), (Ross on Wye Festival), Messiah (de Montfort Hall, Leicester) under Nicholas Cleobury, Elgar’s Coronation Ode and Mendlessohn’s Hymn of Praise (Cheltenham Town Hall).

Jane is now a popular Solo Guest Artiste for Cunard on the QE2, QM2 and also Seabourn Pride, Royal Caribbean and NCL ships.