Arthur Bliss: A Man of Two Continents

A recital by Matt Secombe (Baritone), Rebecca Watson (Piano) and Elizabeth Haughan (Piano) commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of the English composer Sir Arthur Bliss. Matt is the great grandson of Sir Arthur Bliss and the grandson of Sir Harry Secombe, who performed in St John’s Church in 1991 for the ITV television programme ‘Highway’.

Bliss’s father and wife were both American. He lived and taught in the USA for a number of years and one of his major works (the Piano Concerto of 1938/39) is dedicated to the people of the USA. Tonight‘s recital features songs by Bliss himself alongside those by British composers, Vaughan Williams and Rebecca Clarke, who was born in England but spent a large part of her life in the USA and died in New York, together with their American counterparts, Amy Beach and Charles Ives.

The Performers
Matt Secombe is a Masters graduate from the RNCM, where he performed as Germano in Rossini’s La Scala di Seta, Mizgir in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden and Eisenstein in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. Other operatic performances have included playing Masetto in Surrey Opera’s production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Minack, and the Crocodile God in Darren Berry’s The Crocodile of Old Kang Pow for Tête-à-Tête. In November 2024, he performed the roles of Alfio and Silvio in a concert performance of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci in St. Peter’s Church, Staines. Matt was nominated for the Offies 2023 for his performance in HGO’s Venus and Adonis and Dido and Aeneas. Oratorio and song solo performances have included Monteverdi’s Vespers with Wimbledon Choral and His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle with the Tatton Singers, Handel’s Messiah with Eboracum Baroque, Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs with Stafford Choral Society, Haydn’s Paukenmesse with the Esterhazy Singers, and multiple concerts with the East Cornwall Bach Choir, including Brahms’s Requiem in 2024.

Rebecca Watson gained a Masters degree in piano performance with distinction in 2023, under the tutelage of Mark Bebbington and John Thwaites at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Whilst studying, she was awarded the Ambache Prize for a performance of "Pentecost" by Diana Burrell, and was a finalist in the Beryl Chempin Beethoven Prize and the Donohoe Gold Medal. Rebecca has performed in the Conservatoire lunchtime recital series, Malcolm Arnold and Arthur Bliss celebration concerts, and at the Ulverston International music festival. In 2025, she performed John Joubert and Dorothy Howell sonatas as part of a British Music Festival and was an accompanist in the Elgar Festival. Rebecca read medicine at Cambridge University and currently works as a medical school lecturer. Future projects include performances of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, and the piano music of Andrew Downes.

Scottish-born Elizabeth Haughan is a pianist and teacher working across London and Birmingham. She works as both a soloist and in collaboration with many singers and instrumentalists, having performed in venues such as the Southbank Centre, the Wigmore Hall and the Victoria and Albert Museum. She held a Weingarten Scholarship at the Liszt Ferenc Academy in Budapest, where she studied with Gábor Farkas. Previously she gained a First Class BMus (Hons) from the Royal College of Music and an MMus (Distinction) from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, studying with Gordon Fergus Thompson, Margaret Fingerhut and Pascal Nemirovski. Recent highlights include being a Young Artist at Leeds Lieder Festival, performing Dvorák’s Piano Quintet at a pre-CBSO Showcase in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall and winning the Dennis Horner Accompanist Prize at the Junior Kathleen Ferrier Society Awards. She is currently studying on the Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Performance course at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire where she has won the Leamington prize, Sylvia Cleaver Chamber prize and all the major song accompanist prizes.