Soprano, composer and alumna Monica McGhee will unveil her debut song cycle, The Pebbles We Keep, on Sunday 23 November at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) in the Stevenson Hall. McGhee has taken poems penned by Scottish women throughout history – spanning 400 years – and set them to music. They’ll be performed by singers of all ages with a female actor reciting each poem in its original form before each song.
McGhee explains, “The Pebbles We Keep remembers the poets who were often overlooked in their own lifetimes, while offering opportunities for today’s Scottish singers to be heard, in a bid to rebalance the deficit of female roles available within the opera world. It aims to honour Scotland’s cultural roots while creating new repertoire that future generations of singers can perform.”
The poems reflect a wide range of women’s experiences, from disability and working-class struggle to loss, resilience and creativity, by writers including Janet Hamilton, Jessie Anderson, Carolina Oliphant (Baroness Nairne), Mary Mackellar and Mary Symon with the oldest poem being Elizabeth Melville’s Ane Godlie Dreame from 1603 – the first published poem by a Scottish woman. Contemporary poet Lisa Kennedy’s The Pebbles We Keep gives the cycle its name.
Monica McGhee began her musical life as a pianist and trumpet player. She studied at RCS’s Junior Conservatoire of Music before embarking on her Bachelor of Music undergraduate degree in Vocal Performance. Monica was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2017 which looked like it would put a premature end to her career. As she battled the disease and subsequent treatment to repair her voice following emergency surgery, she spent a number of seasons singing extra chorus at the Royal Opera House, with highlights including a tour to Tokyo in 2019.
Having successfully recovered from her illness, she was accepted as the soprano Young Artist at The National Opera Studio for 2020-2021. Recent roles include the title role in Tosca for Opera Bohemia, Beatrice in Beatrice and Benedict for Mid Wales Opera and the leading role of Iolanta for If Opera. Monica made her English National Opera debut earlier this year, playing Mary Beaton in Thea Musgrave’s Mary, Queen of Scots [see my review], on the anniversary of her cancer diagnosis.
The video shows Monica McGhee performing one of the songs from The Pebbles We Keep
Full details from the RCS website.
