Musician Spotlight: Jess Robinson and Rhiannon Pritchard

Our Musician Spotlight for February is soprano Jess Robinson and pianist Rhiannon Pritchard. The duo’s warm personalities have delighted audiences with their wide repertoire including opera, songs from the shows and Welsh favourites since they began working with us in 2014.

How did you first get involved with Music in Hospitals & Care?

Myself and Jess have been involved with Music in Hospitals & Care for many years now. We joined the scheme a few years after graduating from RWCMD (Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama) and have had such a great time performing all over Wales!

What have been some of your highlights?

There have been many highlights, including doing a Christmas tour in the depths of mid Wales; going back to the area where we grew up, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. The biggest highlight is always performing in care settings and seeing the joy on the faces of the audiences when we perform songs they love, their participation in singing along (sometimes even dancing!) and the happiness we bring them for that short while.

How have the live stream sessions you have done so far been?

So far we’ve done about 3 or 4 online sessions, and they’ve worked out really well! We’ve had the usual technology issues at times (the joy of Zoom!) but have always worked through them and  it’s actually a really lovely intimate situation, you can really see each individual reaction. It’s so so brilliant that Music in Hospitals & Care can carry on giving these sessions at such a difficult time for the care community.