Edmund Connolly, baritone and Maxine Thevenot, organ and piano
Friday, October 25, 2019 — 5:30pm
Music of McIntyre, LeClerc, Connolly, Clara Schumann, Bedard
Air & Hammers is a duo consisting of international concert organist and pianist Maxine Thévenot and acclaimed British baritone Edmund Connolly. These two distinguished artists have performed duo concerts together in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and in the UK.
Air & Hammers performs song repertoire of all kinds, including new music by recognized and emerging composers. The duo has given US, UK and world premieres of new works by Andrew Ager, Frederick Frahm and Mary Badarak.
In 2015 Air & Hammers released their first CD, Desire in Spring, available worldwide from Raven Compact Discs.
Visit Air & Hammers.
A native of London, UK, Edmund Connolly studied Music at Robinson College, Cambridge, where he was Organ Scholar. He undertook postgraduate study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the City of London where he studied singing under Professor David Pollard. A year after graduating with his Master of Music degree, Edmund was appointed a Professor of Music Studies at the GSMD, a position he held from 2004-2011.
Over recent years Edmund Connolly has forged a career as an opera and concert singer, organist, piano accompanist and conductor, as well as developing a reputation as a private teacher and vocal coach to young professional singers. His students have included young singers preparing roles for companies such as Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English National Opera and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as well as advanced students from the Guildhall School, the Royal Academy of Music and the Trinity Laban Conservatoire.
A lyric baritone, Edmund has sung major operatic roles in the UK and abroad. He has sung and understudied roles for companies including Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English Touring Opera and Garsington Opera, and his reputation as an intelligent, adaptable singer means he is in demand in music of all periods. He has also sung most major oratorio repertoire as a soloist in the UK. In the US, he has appeared as baritone soloist with the New Mexico Philharmonic in performances of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9, Bach’s St. John Passion and Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem; with Polyphony: Voices of New Mexico’s performances of Henry Mollicone’s Mass for the Homeless and Handel’s Messiah; and in Fauré’s Requiem, performed by the Cathedral Choirs of the Cathedral of St. John under Maxine Thévenot.
Edmund Connolly is currently Assistant Organist-Choir Director at the Cathedral of St. John, Albuquerque, and Upper School Chorus Director at Albuquerque Academy.
For more information, visit edmundconnolly.com
Saskatchewan-born organist, pianist and choral conductor Maxine Thévenot enjoys a distinguished international career and has performed throughout Europe, Great Britain, and North America at prestigious churches, concert halls and festivals. Maxine holds degrees from the University of Saskatchewan and Manhattan School of Music, New York, where she was admitted to the degree Doctor of Musical Arts in Organ Performance. She is an Associate of the Royal Canadian College of Organists and the Royal Conservatory of Music and was made an Honorary Fellow of the National College of Music, London, UK for her ‘services to music’ in 2006.
Much in demand as a recitalist, Maxine Thévenot has been described by the AGO as performing “with passion and brilliance”, and “the music thrives with Thévenot’s superb playing and her masterful manipulation of the instrument’s myriad tonal colours”.
In 2010, Dr. Thévenot became Director of Cathedral Music & Organist at the Cathedral of St John, Albuquerque, New Mexico after previously serving as both its Acting Director and Associate Organist-Choir Director (2005-2009). She was appointed Canon Precentor in 2014 following successful tours to the UK in 2010 and 2014 completing residencies at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London; York Minster; Winchester Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. She has previously held senior positions in churches and cathedrals in New York, Calgary and Saskatoon.
Maxine as released several critically acclaimed choral and organ recordings on the Raven CD label (www.ravencd.com)
Dr. Thévenot serves on the faculty at the University of New Mexico where she is the Director of the only collegiate women’s choir in the state: Las Cantantes. She has lectured in applied organ, music theory music appreciation serves as a university chapel organist.
For more information on this artist please visit maxinethevenot.com