MARGARET FIELD B.Mus (Melb), Hon. FBC.
BIOGRAPHICAL
DETAILS
GENERAL
Described in the British press as “this golden-voiced
Australian soprano,” Margaret Field was born in Australia. She attended
the MacRobertson Girls' High School in Melbourne and
went on to Melbourne University where she obtained a B.Mus
degree and a Dip.Ed. She began her performing career in Australia as a
principal soprano with Victoria State Opera and became a regular broadcaster for the ABC. She
moved to England, where she now lives, in 1973.
CONCERTS AND RECITALS
Margaret gave more than eighty recitals for BBC Radio
Three. She also made solo appearances at most major British music festivals,
including the Bournemouth International Festival, Exeter Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the "Towards
the Millennium" national concert series and several Three Choirs Festivals
in Hereford, at one of which she was the soloist in the Te Deum by Paul
Patterson, who wrote the solo part especially for her. She has sung as soloist
with many of Britain's foremost orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta,
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra,
Ulster Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic Orchestra. Concert halls where she has performed as a soloist or
recitalist include The Royal Festival Hall; Queen Elizabeth Hall; Wigmore Hall; Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Glasgow
Royal Concert Hall; St David's Hall, Cardiff and Symphony Hall, Birmingham.
In 1987 she gave the UK’s first
broadcast performance of Henryk Górecki’s
Symphony No.3 (Symphony of Sorrowful
Songs) with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and in 1989 she gave the work its
London premičre in the Queen Elizabeth Hall with the London Sinfonietta.
Both performances were conducted by David Atherton. Górecki stated
publicly that Margaret was his favourite interpreter
of the Symphony, and in 1994, at the composer's express invitation, she
undertook a much praised UK tour singing the work with the Polish State
Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Jerzy Swoboda. This was followed by a tour of Israel singing Górecki's work with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra as part of
the 1995 Holocaust commemorations. She also gave the world premičre of his (then incomplete) Dobra Noc (Good Night) with the London Sinfonietta
at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in May 1990, as part of a memorial
tribute to the ensemble’s artistic director Michael Vyner.
INTERNATIONAL
Her other overseas performances include a highly acclaimed performance
of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs
with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra in Finland, conducted by Frank Shipway,
and Mahler's Fourth Symphony with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under
Hubert Soudant in Melbourne and Canberra. She has
given oratorio performances in Switzerland and Norway and has undertaken
concert and recital tours of Italy, the Netherlands, Ulster and the Irish
Republic. She has also given recitals in Vienna and Prague.
REPERTOIRE
An extremely versatile singer, Margaret has a wide repertoire ranging
from the baroque and classical to the contemporary. Highly regarded as an
interpreter of modern music, she was a founder-member of the Felsen Trio and sang regularly with the Gemini Ensemble,
directed by Peter Wiegold. She has given first
performances of many works by contemporary composers, several of whom have
written pieces especially for her. Her
notable engagements include a performance of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire
under the direction of Peter Hill at the Firth Hall in Sheffield and Dmitri
Smirnov’s Songs of Love and Madness after Blake with the Chameleon Ensemble, directed by Andrew Ball, at the 1990 Huddersfield
Contemporary Music Festival.
OPERA
Margaret’s operatic work includes many roles with the
Victoria State Opera in Melbourne. More recently she sang Susanna in Mozart's Marriage
of Figaro with Highnam Opera at the Queen
Elizabeth Hall London, and Alice Ford in Verdi's Falstaff and the title
role in Puccini's La Bohčme with English
National Opera at the London Coliseum. She also sang principal roles in Baroque
opera at the Barber Institute, Birmingham.
RECORDINGS
She made her first record “Cabaret Songs of the Jazz Era” for the ABC in
Australia, and she performed two character roles on the BBC Artium
recording of Delius’s opera Margot la
Rouge. She also sang the solo part in Borodin's Prince Igor Suite with
the RPO under Geoffrey Simon for Cala Records. Her CD
of British Song was released in 1995 by Redcliffe Recordings and in the same year her
CD of rose songs "A Garland of Roses"
was released on the Walsingham Classics "Voice of Australia" label.
TEACHING
Margaret enjoys a high reputation as teacher. For 22 years (1973-1994) she taught at Sheffield University and she was appointed a Visiting Tutor in Singing at Birmingham Conservatoire in 1985. She retired in 2011 after 26 years’ service. She conducts regular master classes in solo singing and has given workshops in singing technique for choirs and choral societies, including the National Youth Choir, the International Choral Summer School, the North Wales Summer School of Music, and courses organised by the Association of British Choral Directors. For six consecutive years she was invited to give master classes at the Austrian-American Mozart Academy in Salzburg, Austria, then organised under the auspices of Austin University, Texas. She continues to give private tuition at her home in Ledbury, Herefordshire, England, where she lives with her husband, composer and record producer John Rushby-Smith, and where she is able to indulge her passionate enthusiasm for gardening.
AWARDS
Margaret Field was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Birmingham Conservatoire in 2012.
(17 August, 2012)
MARGARET
FIELD: Repertoire Reviews
JOHN RUSHBY-SMITH: Biography Compositions Discography