Tara is a talented soprano, with a growing range of experience, both as a teacher and as a performer.

 

Performing

Having taken a short break from performance due to illness, Tara is now getting back into singing, also gaining more time with having moved to freelance work in 2014. She has sung as a soloist at several weddings in 2015 around the country, and is looking to move back into choral soloist work in 2016.

Tara has a wide repertoire, and great enjoys learning new music and styles. You can view her repertoire on the next page. She has regularly attended the Charterhouse Summer School of Music, under the tutelage of Ian Partridge and Julie Kennard, and is committed to developing her own technique as well as her repertoire and experience.

Tara is available to sing at weddings and functions on request, as a soloist for your choir, or indeed as a choral member.

 

Perfomance Background

Throughout her school years, Tara was heavily involved in local musical life, and sung with the acclaimed Wycombe High School chamber choir, with whom she performed both as a choir member and soloist both at home, and on their tours to Krakow and Bratislava.

At university, Tara was a member of the BBC National Chorus of Wales for 3 years; a great experience which saw her perform at several BBC Proms (in Holst’s Choral Symphony as a semi chorus member), BBC Proms in the Park 2007 (televised), and with a select subset of the choir at the Festival de Saint-Denis in Paris, performing in the famous cathedral singing Beethoven’s 9th. She studied with Beatrice Unsworth and Joanne Thomas.

Tara graduated in 2009, with a degree in Music and Philosophy. She received David Evans Memorial Prize, for consistently high (1st) academic achievement in the music portion of her degree. She has continued her studies at ever since home with Julie Kennard (ARAM).

Since university, Tara has been very successful as a soloist. She is also a talented choral singer, and sang with Thames Voyces under the musical leadership of Peter White since 2010. She has won many awards at festivals; most recently gaining the Antoinette Berten Memorial Cup for Lieder, and the Senior Recital Prize at the well-established Richmond-Upon-Thames Performing Arts Festival and has also gained recognition at Marlow and Chesham festivals.

Tara has been a soloist for many local choirs; for example, singing Stainer’s Crucifixion with the Lacey Green Singers and performing with Thames Voyces singing Die Nacht by Strauss, and as the soloist in Britten’s Te Deum in C. Tara performed within university concerts during her time in Cardiff, and back at home; with students from the Royal Academy of Music for a fundraising event in Buckinghamshire, and with local choirs as a soloist, and with Tom Wakeley for a cabaret for the Queen’s Jubilee. She has also sung at The Ivy, where she was requested as a soloist for a private event.  In addition to this, she has sung solo parts in many oratorio and masses around the country, including Saint Saen Requiem, Fauré Requiem, Rutter Magnificat, Weber Missa Sancta in G and Haydn Nelson Mass.

As a music enthusiast herself, Tara has also put her talent and intelligence to organising events for charity. She has sung at South Hill Park’s Singathon to raise money for a local cancer and renal unit and she has also organised several charity recitals in the area, raising money for Alzheimer’s Research UK and a free music school in London.

 

Teaching

Tara has run an incredibly successful teaching practice since 2009, and has taught over 60 students. Students have enjoyed success in the ABRSM and Trinity Guildhall singing exams, in addition to successfully passing auditions for theatrical agencies, theatre school, choral scholarships and productions. Most recently, students have gained choral scholarships to Oxford and Cambridge University for the academic year commencing in 2016. Students are of all ages, and come to train for exams and auditions, to gain technical expertise, or to simply sing to de-stress and gain confidence. Tara does not believe that people ‘can’t sing’, and has proved this by sending off many of her beginner students to join local choirs and groups once they had gained the confidence and knowledge of how to use their voices.

Tara graduated with a PGCE in Secondary Music in 2012 from Reading University (with Distinction gained in both the practical and academic portions of her course) , and subsequently taught in a busy mixed comprehensive for 2 years, before deciding to return to freelance work, as she preferred the focus on musical learning. Having said this, the experience of classroom teaching has been invaluable to informing her practice today. She single-handedly set up an extensive extra-curricular programme (including a samba band, school band, ukulele group,  musical theatre group, and choir), and brought music and performance back to the forefront of school life, and out into the community in her short time at the school. Tara trained at Cox Green School which is an excellent Musical Futures flagship school, and this gave her a passion for informal and non-formal musical teaching practices, including class instrumental teaching, and creative composition workshops, which she still teaches on a freelance basis.

As a vocal coach and a musical director, Tara has worked with a local stage school for over 6 years, MD-ing over 12 productions and summer schools, and 2 West End Showcases. She is about to musically produce a performance at Disneyland Paris with some of the students in April 2016.

Tara also runs story and music workshops with 22 month olds at a local nursery, in addition to running an adult choir for beginners, who cover pop and musical theatre repertoire. She has also expressed an interest in moving into singing within the healthcare sector, and due to familial and teaching experience of students with COPD and breathing problems, Tara has started work with the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals ‘Singing for Breathing’ programme, gaining experience of teaching from the programme’s creator Phoene Cave. Tara has selected the repertoire and will be conducting the group’s Christmas performances in 2015. She has also gained funding from the British Lung Foundation to set up a local group for people with COPD to bring the pioneering programme out into the community.

 

For more information on teaching, please go to her                        page.