Libera Dreams

For those who are still interested in this young man's career, here is his most recent video that he has posted on YouTube. His voice has a long way to go to be a mature baritone but his musical talent cannot be denied.

So, Aksel is coming to the UK in 10 days time to sing his first UK concert as a Baritone!

http://bit.ly/3HIbtyZ

I will certainly be going, as I was already impressed by his transition to Baritone and am super excited to hear how his voice has developed.

It's hosted at the National Liberal Club (opposite the Playhouse Theatre) near Charing Cross. Quite a swanky and exclusive venue, usually.

I hope they let oiks like me in, on concert days. :/

Hope he continues on to be a well-regarded classical singer as an adult, which it looks like he already has. His YouTube channel doesn't have many recent recordings, but this one shows off his skills. You will have to make an assessment of his baritone singing ability, and whether he is as world-class as an adult as he was a treble. Until he puts out something where I can compare him to other well-known baritone pieces it's hard to say exactly how he rates. Something like "Largo al factotum" from Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia is probably the best known baritone aria and shows off that voice range nicely.

To summarize, wonderful concert and a great voice, absolutely thrilled to be able to report that Aksel's baritone is fantastic.

The concert was in the quite exclusive National Liberal Club. The set list was in two halves, with the first half composed of the nine part Liederkreis, Op. 24 from Schumann. It is apparently a lesser known song cycle, but I found it interesting and engaging. I was worried, going in to the concert, that I would be disappointed by his baritone voice and I spent the first few songs of the Liederkreis trying to work out what I thought. Then sometime during the sixth song, I just started smiling as his voice reached through to me. I was in a buoyant mood at the interval and excitedly shared with my neighbour what I thought, and the gentleman, a long time member at the Liberal Club, echoed my sentiment that Aksel does indeed have a great baritone!

The second half of the programme was a mix of Schubert and Hugo Wolf. With nice contrasting pieces for a thoroughly enjoyable recital, with one encore. Note that all the songs sung were in German!

Got to meet him after the concert and got his autograph, and he even (vaguely, after some prompting ) remembered me.

Glad you enjoyed the concert and even had a chance to show your appreciation after the show.

It turns out he is actually over in the UK studying. He has a full scholarship to study BMus in Voice at the Royal Academy of Music. So I suspect this won't be his last UK concert!