Friends Reunited – by report in local paper

A report about a concert in a Midland weekly newspaper led to a young professional opera singer being reunited with two old school friends for the first time for several years.

An advance press release about the annual summer concert of Pershore Choral in Worcestershire highlighted the fact that soprano, Rose Johnson (pictured) originally from Sedgeberrow, near Evesham, would be singing solo during a performance of choral works by local composer, Sir Edward Elgar, and two other composers.

It was read by two of the singer’s former classmates from Prince Henry’s High School in Evesham who promptly bought tickets for the concert and then turned up to meet her and watch her sing at the event in Pershore Abbey.

“We had not seen each other for ages and it was a lovely surprise,” said Rose who studied music and vocal performance at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and then moved to the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire where she gained an MMus (Master of Music degree) in Vocal Performance followed by an Advanced Postgraduate Diploma.

She is now Opera Outreach Officer at the Conservatoire and a vocal and woodwind teacher for Coventry Music. She has won a number of prizes for singing including the 2022 Mario Lanza Opera Prize and has taken leading parts in 11 operatic productions.To relax in her spare time, she plays the clarinet and saxophone and has even played in a jazz band with her brother.

The advance press release about the concert, which led to the friends’ reunion, was written and submitted to the Evesham Journal by Press Club member Chris Mowbray, a retired freelance journalist and former Birmingham Post and Mail staffer who sings in Pershore Choral’s tenor section.“This was a superb example of the immense value that traditional local newspapers add to their communities and I would like to thank Stephanie Preece, the editorial executive at Midlands Newsquest who made the coverage possible,” he said.

· Pershore Choral will be performing “The Creation” by Joseph Haydn on 29 November. Tickets will be available through the box office on 01905 770557 and through the Pershore Choral website at www.pershorechoral.co.uk