FAREWELL TO…
Jane Manning Born 1938 Soprano
f ever there was an artist who flew the flag for new music, it was Jane Manning. Through her 50-year career she premiered well over 300 works and became a champion of composers such assaw the soprano partake in eight different roles and she made Schoenberg’s her own in over 100 performances and three recordings. Such performative adventure, always entered into with the utmost technical focus, was at the heart of her music-making. Her debut in the mid-1960s followed formal training in London and Cureglia, Switzerland. She founded the ensemble Jane’s Minstrels in 1988 and continued to commission and perform works by up-and-coming composers until just a few years ago. Made an OBE in 1990 for services to contemporary music, Manning did dip her toes into earlier repertoire, but it was the thrill of the new which above all captured her imagination and her audiences’ devotion.
