An Irish Lass To Ring in the New Year

ailishtynan.jpg

I’ve been approaching the grand countdown to 2008 by listening to a new discovery — the young Irish soprano Ailish Tynan (pictured). An English friend turned me on to her. He said that a couple of months ago Britain’s Radio 3 set up an impromptu “Innocent Ear” session for a group of critics. One of the blind tastings was a CD of Schubert’s “The Shepherd on the Rock,” for soprano, clarinet, and piano. Tynan’s radiant soprano stunned the assembled connoisseurs. Tynan won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Rosenblatt Recital prize in 2003, and has apparently been a marvelous Papagena and Despina in London. She’ll be doing Sophie in “Der Rosenkavalier” in Stockholm in the spring, and Hero in “Beatrice et Benedict” in October in Houston. Tynan has just recorded the Judith Weir opera “Natural History”; her iTunes availability is confined to a disc of Irish songs and “On Buying a Horse,” which are songs by Weir. “The Shepherd on the Rock” is available for a listen on Amazon.com.

Leave a Comment