OPERA and concert singer Lee Bisset from Inverbeg on Loch Lomondside returned home in December to star in a Christmas Gala in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.
Popular TV presenter and newsreader Angela Rippon introduced the Raymond Gubbay Christmas Festival, a concert of merry festive favourites and classic carols, on Tuesday December 16 — and she also played an anvil in the performance of a Leroy Anderson piece.
The performers were soprano Lee, boy soprano Hamish Innes from Edinburgh, tenor James Edwards, and the Scottish Concert Orchestra conducted by Fraser Goulding.
The selection of classical music included the Nutcracker Suite, Hansel and Gretel Overture, Ave Maria, Pie Jesu, and Sleigh Ride, and the audience stood to sing carols, including Once in Royal David’s City, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and The Twelve Days of Christmas.
The former Lomond School pupil, who was the 2007 Susan Chilcott Scholar, studied privately in Italy, at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, the Royal Northern College of Music, and the National Opera Studio where she was sponsored by English National Opera.
Recent engagements included Tatyana for Longborough Festival followed by Donna Anna in Don Giovanni for Preggio Opera in Italy. She has also finished as a member of the Young Singers Programme at English National Opera, where she sang Karolka in Jenufa, First Lady in The Magic Flute, Mimi in La Boheme and Strolling Player in Death in Venice. Last summer she sang Fiordiligi in Cosi Fan Tutte for Castleward Opera and for Preggio Opera.
Lee also sang in the Raymond Gubbay Christmas concerts in Manchester and at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and her forthcoming engagements include a Missa Solemnis in Bristol, and Micaela in Carmen at the Royal Albert Hall.
