ON Friday, June 7th at 7.30pm Bolton Priory will be the setting for a unique collaboration of voice and piano entitled ‘A Celebration of English Music'.

All proceeds from this concert will go towards the work of Marie Curie. The two performers are both based in West Yorkshire.

Margaret Bruce, however, was born in Vancouver and studied at the Toronto Conservatory of Music before leaving Canada for London when she was 18.

After attending the Royal College of Music she won a scholarship for further study in Vienna. Returning to London she completed her studies with the Czech concert pianist Lisa Fuchsova and the German-born conductor Peter Gellhorn.

There are any numbers of pianists who've had the occasional work written for them but Margaret Bruce has had what amounts to an entire repertoire of new music written specially for her by composers as famous as Herbert Howells and Sir Lennox Berkeley. She has also played Mozart and Chopin at the Barbican with the Royal Philharmonic, performed Liszt in Slovakia and Bermuda and presented various recitals and broadcasts throughout North America and Europe.

Of all the composers who have written works for her, the Czech composer Antonin Tucapsky has particular pride of place. In the 80's Bruce premiered his Fantasia quasi una sonata at the Purcell Room. There followed a piano concerto, a piano trio and 24 Piano Preludes. In addition he wrote a miniature Piano Trio for her triplet sons when they were six years old.

Rowena Thornton was born in Leeds into a musical family and has been singing since the age of four. Over the years she has taken part in performances of a variety of styles and genres comprising opera, oratorio, Lieder, and contemporary music, including premieres of new works.

Rowena performs both as soloist and in ensembles. After graduating from the University of Birmingham she completed a Masters in Performance at Leeds College of Music, where she performed a range of repertoire from Purcell to Cage and beyond. Most recently Rowena has played the lead roles of Nedda (Il Paggliacci), Rosalind (Die Fledermaus) Mabel (The Pirates of Penzance) and Elsie Maynard (Yeomen of the Guard).

A new work by local composer, Dr Timothy Raymond, will be performed for the first time at this concert entitled ‘Chaos in fourteen lines’. It consists of cycle of seven songs representing a kind of musical portrait of an American poet, Edna St Vincent Millay, whose reputation as a master of verse, and of the sonnet in particular, was offset by her adventurous - even notorious -personal life.

Tickets, priced £15, include a glass of wine or a soft drink and are available via the Priory website www.boltonpriory.org.uk, the Bolton Priory Facebook page or on the door on the night.