Music organisations mark centenary of Jennifer Vyvyan

The centenary of celebrated English soprano Jennifer Vyvyan will take place on Thursday (13 March), with a commemoration event in the coastal town of Broadstairs, where she was born. Further remembrance events will take place at the Royal Academy of Music and Aldeburgh Festival.

Vyvyan was a key figure in the English Opera Group, and in the modern stage revival of baroque opera, starring in performances of Handel and Purcell for the Handel Opera Society, the Royal Opera House, Sadlers Wells and Aldeburgh Festival. She was also chosen by Sir Arthur Bliss, Master of the Queen’s Music, to take part in his ‘Musical Embassy’, travelling to Russian in 1956 – the height of the Cold War – to bring English music to Soviet audiences.

Benjamin Britten wrote major stage roles including the Governess in Turn of the Screw, Tytania in Midsummer Night’s Dream, Lady Rich in the coronation opera Gloriana and Mrs Julian in the TV opera Owen Wingrave for Vyvyan. She also championed many new works by other contemporary composers: Francis Poulenc, Malcolm Williamson, Lennox Berkeley, Arthur Bliss, Gordon Crosse.

After her early death in 1974, Vyvyan’s husband established a memorial scholarship in her name at the Royal Academy of Music, where she had been a student. Designated for a female singer, holders of the scholarship across the decades have included sopranos Lucy Crowe and Aimee Fisk. On 3 April, the Royal Academy of Music will host a concert celebrating Vyvyan’s centenary with music performed by the current recipient of the Jennifer Vyvyan Award, Daisy Livesey, alongside a talk by music critic Michael White.

On 26 June Aldeburgh Festival will host a memorial concert featuring folksong, opera and oratorio presented by Sophie Bevan and Ryan Wigglesworth alongside another talk by Michael White in the Britten Studio.