Part of the Belfast Music Society's Northern Lights Mini-Fest

The first winner of the Glenarm Festival of Voice, Newry-based baritone Ben McAteer trained at the National Opera Studio in London and on the Guildhall School of Music & Drama opera course. He previously studied chemistry at the University of St Andrews.

Ben featured in one of the first BMS Mini-Fests, back in 2011, with a programme of English art song. He returns to this rich seam of music with a programme centred on Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel, and is partnered by renowned accompanist Iain Burnside.

In addition, the programme includes the world premiere of a new work by local composer Elaine Agnew, specially commissioned for Ben and Iain by BMS to celebrate its centenary and the 10th anniversary of the Northern Lights Mini-Fest. The work sets poems by the celebrated Belfast poet Ciaran Carson.

Vaughan Williams – Songs of Travel

Elaine Agnew – new work