Mary Carewe’s versatility encompasses musical theatre showstoppers and cabaret songs to contemporary music.

Since its creation, Blue Noise has rapidly gained a reputation in Berlin for its versatile approach to the music of last (not to mention this) century; its premières range from the more conventional presentations of New Music to more theatre-orientated performances making use of multi-media.

MARY CAREWE
Vocalist

Mary Carewe's versatility encompasses musical theatre showstoppers and cabaret songs to contemporary music.

She has worked under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, Kurt Masur, John Rutter and Carl Davis with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Hallé Orchestra. Mary is also a regular guest with the RTE Concert Orchestra in Dublin and, with the BBC Concert Orchestra, she has appeared at the Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican Centre, the Royal Albert Hall, Hampton Court Festival and the Royal Ulriksdal Palace Festival, Sweden.

As a recitalist, Mary extensively performs Serio us Cabaret programmes with her pianist Philip Mayers with whom she will make her debut next season at the Théâtre du Châtelet series 'Les Midis Musicaux' in Paris and the Concertgebouw 'Musiques en scène' series in Amsterdam. The duo has also been invited to be part of the Alicante Contemporary Music Festival and the Oxford Contemporary Music events series and will be presenting 'Kurt Weill: Emigré', a programme especially devised for the Kurt Weill festival in Dessau, the composer's native town.

Mary has recently been involved in both educational projects and Cabaret concerts together with Sinfonia VIVA with whom she will be performing again in the Spring 2003. In 2004, she will also be touring a Serious Cabaret programme including works by Gershwin, Kurt Weill and Britten with the contemporary music ensemble Psappha with whom she made a successful debut last November at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

Among the highlights of past seasons, Mary has appeared at the Wigmore Hall with Thomas Adès, the Berlin Philharmonie with Ensemble Oriol, with whom she regularly performs, and at the Cheltenham Festival with the Matrix Ensemble. She also gave the premiere of Dominic Muldowney's Irish Love Songs, written especially for her at the Oxford Contemporary Music Festival in 1998. With Philip Mayers, she has sung at the Aldeburgh Festival, Djanogly Hall, Purcell Room, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Louisiana Music Series in Denmark and both Sheffield and Hull Universities.

Recording credits include Thomas Adès' Life Story for EMI (Gramophone Record of the Month), Peter Maxwell-Davies' Resurrection for Collins Classics and a solo album, Tell me The Truth about Love, a selection of Serious Cabaret songs for ASV. Mary has also recorded West End, Broadway and Film Music repertoire for Chandos and Silva Screen as well as numerous CDs with both the BBC Concert and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestras.

In 1996, four young international musicians living in Berlin decided to combine their common interest in the "serious" and so-called "light" music of the 20th century into a group dedicated to performing the music of both genres: thus Blue Noise was born.

Its members have extensive stage experience in symphony orchestras (including the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin), chamber orchestras (Ensemble Oriol, Carl-Philipp-Emmanuel Bach Chamber Orchestra, European Community Chamber Orchestra), ensembles for New Music (Ensemble Modern, Ensemble L'art pour l'art, Fledermann, Australia Ensemble), and diverse chamber music formations. They are particularly experienced in the field of contemporary music, with more than 200 world premieres among them. Since its creation, Blue Noise has rapidly gained a reputation in Berlin for its versatile approach to the music of last (not to mention this) century; its premières range from the more conventional presentations of New Music to more theatre-orientated performances making use of multi-media. Directly after its creation Blue Noise was invited to become an "ensemble in residence" at Podewil, one of Berlin's leading venues for contemporary music and its performance. Past projects include: "High Noon with Blue Noise", a series of brunch concerts that presented New Music to a non-specialist audience in a relaxed atmosphere, a concert for George Gershwin's 100th birthday; and concerts for the 90th birthdays of Olivier Messiaen and Elliott Carter. In 1997, Berlin's Senate commissioned a new work from the composer Il-Ryun-Chung for Blue Noise which had its world premiere in September 1998.

Plans for the future include a project with young film-makers and composers. Blue Noise also intends to establish close ties with contemporary music centres in the USA, Australia, France, and Scandinavia.

Since 1998 the British soprano Mary Carewe has collaborated regularly with Blue Noise.This collaboration resulted in the CD on ASV label Tell Me the Truth About Love (Gershwin, Weill, Hollander, Britten etc) which was released in 2000 to enthusiastic press reviews.

Philip Mayers, an Australian musician of remarkable versatility, lives in Berlin, where he has established a reputation as an interpreter of new music and as an outstanding lieder accompanist. His concert performances have taken him worldwide to leading music festivals such as Aldeburgh, Montreux, Schleswig Holstein and the BBC Proms.

After his studies in Australia at the Queensland Conservatorium and the Conservatorium Opera School as repetiteur, Philip Mayers was at once invited to perform throughout Australia - working with the group Synergy and also with the Australia Ensemble. With the Fledermann Ensemble for Contemporary Music, he played in Australia's and New Zealand's most important performance venues, and subsequently with Fledermann in the "Late Night" series of London's Proms concerts. During this period, he regularly played as a soloist with the Queensland Ballet, establishing a close relationship to the Lyric Opera in Queensland. His work with opera continued with the Australian Opera and later, in Germany, with the Berliner Kammeroper and the Kammeroper Schloß Rheinsberg. In 1986, he won the 1st Prize in the Australian Broadcasting Company's competition Young Performer of the Year. He was then awarded a stipend by the Australia Council that enabled him to study lieder accompaniment under Philip Moll in Berlin and chamber music with Dalton Baldwin in France.

In 1996 he founded the Blue Noise ensemble for new music and was immediately invited to represent Germany at the April Spring Festival in North Korea. Philip is the regular duo-partner of the British singer Mary Carewe and together they released a disc of serious cabaret songs on the ASV label: Tell Me the Truth About Love.

In recent years Philip Mayers has become increasingly known as a composer and arranger. His first chamber opera, "Trieste", written for the Berliner Kammeroper, was premiered in spring 1998.