IT will be a family affair at Huddersfield U3A Mixed Choir’s 25th anniversary concert.
Singing sisters Debra and Sara Ogden will join their mother Sue to perform as guest artists at the event on April 17.
Sue is an accompanist for several choirs and will be performing that role for her daughters at the concert at St Paul’s Hall.
Debra is a mezzo-soprano and lives in London, while Sara, who is a soprano, lives in Shelley.
The concert gives them a rare chance to appear on stage together.
They both attended Holmfirth High School and Greenhead College before pursuing their musical studies.
Sara started playing the trumpet aged seven and went to the University of Birmingham, where she began receiving vocal tuition from Andrea Calladine at the Birmingham Conservatoire.
She appeared as a soloist in major events such as playing The Countess in Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro.
After graduating in 2005 and moving back to Yorkshire, she was in great demand as a soloist for works including Haydn’s Harmony Mass, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Rossini’s Petite Messe Sollenelle, Dvorack’s Stabat Mater and many performances of Handel’s Messiah.
She has also performed with Black Dyke and Foden’s brass bands at many venues.
Sara was awarded the title of Kirklees Young Musician of the Year at the 2006 Mrs Sunderland Music Festival and now gives full-time vocal tuition for Kirklees Music School, conducting Hade Edge Community Choir in her spare time.
While Sara has stayed closed to home, Debra left Huddersfield in 2001 to study at Trinity College of Music in London under John Wakefield and Helen Yorke, graduating in 2005.
While at the college, she was soloist in Da Falla’s Three Cornered Hat with the college’s symphony orchestra and sang the role of Nurse in the showcase of Sorry, False Alarm!, an opera by Scottish composer David Johnson.
She is currently studying with voice coach Linda Hutchison and performs regularly as an oratorio soloist in London and Kent.
Her performances include Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Mass in C, Ramirez’s Missa Creola, Bach’s Mass in D and Dvorack’s Stabat Mater.
She sings with Queldryk Chamber Choir in London which is directed by composer Paul Ayres and performs as soloist with several other choirs in the capital.
When she is not singing, Debra works at the London School of Economics as assistant to the school’s two deans.
The Ogden sisters will not be the only attraction at the U3A concert.
It will be a big night for the choir, celebrating quarter of a century of performances.
The U3A choir has come a long way since it was formed as a class in 1984 by the late Arnold Harrop.
Following Mr Harrop’s death, it came under the musical direction of Roy Firth.
When he died in 1998, Eric Cooper and Steven Byrne took over as joint musical directors.
Mr Byrne left two years ago and was replaced by Malcolm Fairless who had been musical director of Gledholt Male Voice Choir for many years.
Tickets for the 25th anniversary concert, which starts at 7.15pm, cost £6 and can be bought from the Tourist Information Centre on Albion Street.
