
Soloist
William Thomas
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For the 2022/23 season, William is set to perform the roles of Colline in La bohème for Glyndebourne on Tour and at the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival, and Snug in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for his debut with Opéra de Rouen Normandie. He will also showcase his vocal abilities in Handel’s Messiah with the Academy of Ancient Music/Laurence Cummings, Mozart’s Requiem with Glyndebourne on Tour, Handel’s St John Passion with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra/Phillip von Steinacker, and Narbal in Les Troyens with the Monteverdi Orchestra/Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
In the coming seasons, he will make his debuts at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Teatro alla Scala, Milan, while also returning to the Opéra national de Paris.
As a Jerwood Young Artist, he played Nicholas in the British premiere of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa at the Glyndebourne Festival. William has also performed as Shepherd in Pelléas et Mélisande for Garsington Opera and made his debut at the Vienna State Opera as Snug in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Recently, he has performed as Zweiter Priester/Zweiter Geharnischter in Die Zauberflöte for Glyndebourne and Colline in La bohème at Alexandra Palace for the English National Opera.
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Her outstanding talent has been acknowledged with numerous awards, including the Critics' Circle award for Exceptional Young Talent in 2010 and the Young Singer award at the 2013 International Opera Awards. In 2019, Sophie was made an MBE for her services to music in the Queen's Birthday Honours.
Sophie has performed with leading orchestras around the world and under the direction of acclaimed conductors such as Sir Antonio Pappano, Daniel Harding, Andris Nelsons, and Sir Mark Elder. Her repertoire includes works by composers such as Schubert, Faure, Handel, and Gluck. She is also a highly-regarded recitalist, having performed at venues including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Aldeburgh Festival, and the Wigmore Hall in London.
Sophie is in high demand for her work in opera, having performed in numerous productions including Le nozze di Figaro, Carmen, and The Turn of the Screw. She has appeared at prestigious venues such as the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and the Salzburg Festival. Sophie lives in Oxfordshire with her husband, two children, and two cocker spaniels.
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Bethany's recent highlights include her role debut as Dorabella in the John Cox production of Così fan Tutte at Garsington Opera, winning second prize in the 2021 London Handel Festival Singing Competition, and performing a solo recital at the London Handel Festival with her duo partner Steven Devine. She has also been on an extensive tour with Holland Baroque and played the role of Žena in Káťa Kabanová at Glyndebourne.
Bethany has performed with several notable ensembles, including the Academy of Ancient Music and Voces8 for their annual performance of Handel's Messiah, and her Royal Festival Hall, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, and Kings Place solo debuts as part of the OAE Rising Stars scheme. She also joined the OAE for their broadcast production of Bach's St John Passion alongside a cast including Gerald Finley and Mark Padmore, and recorded and performed the role of Cupid in John Eccles' Semele with the Academy of Ancient Music and Cambridge Early Opera.
In 2019, Bethany won first prize in the Normandy International Music Competition Concours Corneille in association with Le Poème Harmonique, and made her Glyndebourne debut as Kitchen Boy in Dvořák's Rusalka, also covering the role of Siren in Handel's Rinaldo. She subsequently made her Berlin Philharmonie debut with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in their concert performance of Dvořák's Rusalka, conducted by Robin Ticciati.
Bethany's passion for new music has led her to premiere songs by Jeffrey Joseph, John Sturt, Thomas Hewitt Jones, and Tim Hamilton. She often commissions new scores and has collaborated with composers such as Nils Frahm, Terry Riley, and the London Contemporary Orchestra. She has also honed her craft in masterclasses and workshops with renowned artists such as Brigitte Fassbaender, Joyce DiDonato, David Gowland, Patricia Bardon, Mary Bevan, Dame Felicity Lott, and Sophie Daneman.
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Andrew has also worked with Daniel Harding and Robin Ticciati, performing with the Orchestre de Paris, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. In addition, he has performed with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Semyon Bychkov, appearing with the Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, Orcherstre Métropolitain, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Accademia Santa Cecilia.
Andrew has made appearances at several world-renowned venues, including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera, the National Theatre Prague, La Monnaie Brussels, the Salzburger Festspiele, Hamburgische Staatsoper, Theater an der Wien, the Lucerne Festival, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. He has performed a range of roles, such as Jacquino Fidelio, Flamand Capriccio, Tamino Die Zauberflöte, Tichon Katya Kabanova, Narraboth Salome, and Andres Wozzeck.
Andrew's recent and upcoming performances include his debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Andres Wozzeck, Nicias in concert performances of Thais with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Das Lied von der Erde with the New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and Budapest Festival Orchestra. He will also be returning to the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Bayerischer Rundfunk Munich in the future.
Tugce Tez represents Andrew.
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Born in West Sussex, Nick Pritchard read music as a choral scholar at New College, Oxford and studied with Russell Smythe at the Royal College of Music International Opera School (RCMIOS). He was an inaugural member of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s (OAE) ’Rising Stars’ scheme (2017-19) and is a Samling artist. In 2017, he won the Whatsonstage Opera Poll award for Breakthrough Artist in UK Opera.
Described as a ‘Masterly Evangelist’ in The Guardian, he has sung the role in both the St John and Matthew Passions of JS Bach with Edward Higginbottom and The Instruments of Time and Truth, in New York with The Choir of New College, Oxford, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and John Butt, with Polyphony and the OAE and most recently under Sir John Eliot Gardiner with the Monteverdi Choir.
On the concert platform he has performed with Ensemble Pygmalion, Concerto Köln, Les Talens Lyrique, Les Violons du Roy, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, English Concert, Early Opera Company, Philharmonia Orchestra, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Gabrieli Consort, Britten Sinfonia, the Monteverdi Choir and orchestra, Early Opera Company, St Paul Chamber Orchestra and L’Orchestre de Chambre de Paris (Britten’s Les Illuminations and Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings). He has worked under conductors including David Bates, Harry Bicket, John Butt, Jonathan Cohen, Christian Curnyn, Maxim Emelyanychev, Adam Fischer, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Emmanuelle Haïm, Simon Halsey, Raphaël Pichon, Christophe Rousset, and Sir András Schiff.
Operatic roles include Lysander A Midsummer Night’s Dream under Ryan Wigglesworth as part of the Aldeburgh Festival’s 70th anniversary, Tamino Die Zauberflöte for Glyndebourne on Tour and for Irish National Opera and Peter Whelan, Prologue The Turn of the Screw and Ferrando Cosí fan tutte for Opera Holland Park, Amphinomus The Return of Ulysses under Christian Curnyn for the Royal Opera House, Purcell’s The Indian Queen for the Opéra de Lille under Emmanuelle Haïm, Henry Crawford Mansfield Park under David Parry for The Grange Festival, Acis Acis and Galatea under Laurence Cummings as part of the London Handel Festival, Telemaco The Return of Ulysses and Mercurio La Calisto, both for English Touring Opera, Albert in Albert Herring for RCMIOS, John/Angel 3 Written on Skin, and Paulino The Secret Marriage for British Youth Opera (for which he won the Dame Hilda Bracket award from Sadler’s Wells).
On the recital platform he has performed Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin with Gary Matthewman at the Elgar Room in The Royal Albert Hall, Britten’s Winter Words with Sholto Kynoch for the Oxford Lieder Festival and at Leeds Lieder with Ian Tindale, An die Ferne Geliebte with Christopher Glynn at the Two Moors Festival, and a Schubert recital with Graham Johnson at Wigmore Hall. He also appears on a disc titled Decades – a Century of Song (volume 4) for the Vivat label, performing songs by César Franck, accompanied by Malcolm Martineau.
A regular performer of New Music, he has also given several World Premieres, including creating the role of Matthew in Mark Simpson’s opera Pleasure (Opera North, Aldeburgh and The Royal Opera House), Through these Pale Cold Days, a song cycle for Tenor, Viola and Piano written by Ian Venables for the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, Sleepsinging by Cassandra Miller (with David Bates and La Nuova Music at Wigmore Hall), Daniel Kidane’s Songs of Illumination (with Ian Tindale at the Leeds Lieder Festival), Gabriel Jackson’s Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ (with The Choir of Merton College, Oxford and Benjamin Nicholas) and Bob Chilcott’s Christmas Oratorio (The Three Choirs Festival and Adrian Partington).
Nick has recently made his BBC Proms debut singing Mozart Requiem with La Nuova Musica under David Bates. Future highlights include Oronte Alcina in a new Tim Albery production for Opera North, Colonel Fairfax The Yeoman of the Guard for The Grange Festival, a revival of The Indian Queen under Emmanuelle Haïm and Evangelists for the OAE and Polyphony and with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra at the Concertgebouw.
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Winner of the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at Cardiff Singer of the World 2019, British mezzo-soprano Katie Bray has become known for her magnetic stage presence and gleaming, expressive tone.
Recent roles for Opera North include Hansel Hansel and Gretel, Rosina Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Varvara Katya Kabanova, Louis XV Chair/Female Cat/Owl L’enfant et les sortilèges, Lola Cavalleria Rusticana, and Nancy Albert Herring. She has also sung with Irish National Opera in the title role, Griselda, English National Opera as Daughter Akhnaten and in The Way Back Home, Scottish Opera as Lucilla La Scala di seta, Welsh National Opera Zerlina, Don Giovanni, Opera Holland Park Mallika Lakmé, English Touring Opera Zenobia Radamisto, Minerva Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and Satirino La Calisto, Grimeborn Festival as Charlotte Werther, and with Garsington Opera as Zulma L’Italiana in Algeri, Zaida Il turco in Italia, and most recently Isolier Le Comte Ory, for which she received great acclaim. She also recently performed in a staged cabaret of ‘songs banned by the Nazis’, Effigies of Wickedness, at the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill, in collaboration with English National Opera.
Equally at home on the concert platform, Katie Bray has performed in prestigious venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, and the Holywell Music Room and she appears regularly in the London English Song Festival, where she has directed concerts at Wilton’s Music Hall, as well as at the Oxford Lieder Festival for which she recorded a disc of Schumann songs with Sholto Kynoch. Other recent highlights include a semi-staged version of Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch with Christopher Glynn and Roderick Williams at Milton Court Concert Hall and Ryedale Festival, and the premiere of new monodrama Frida with the East London Music Group.
Katie Bray is particularly noted for baroque repertoire and has appeared with Barokksolistene and Bjarte Eike, Monteverdi Choir and Sir John Eliot Gardiner, La Nuova Musica, Ludus Baroque, London Handel Orchestra and Laurence Cummings, Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra, and Spira Mirabilis. She has also appeared with orchestras including the Britten Sinfonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre Chambre de Paris, and the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra.
Recent and future highlights include concerts at the Oxford Lieder Festival, Viardot200 Festival, and with the Irish Baroque Orchestra, with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Jac van Steen, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Peter Whelan, Messiah for the Hallé Orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Barbican and a role in Garsington Opera’s 2023 Festival.
Katie Bray graduated as a Karaviotis Scholar from the opera course at the Royal Academy of Music, was awarded the Principal’s Prize and won First Prize in the Richard Lewis Singing Competition.
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Winner of Second Prize at the 2020 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, Ella Taylor is a soprano with a passion for per- forming contemporary music and works by women and gender non-conforming artists. They graduated from the Royal Academy of Music, where they gained Distinction in MA Performance, a DipRAM for an outstanding final recital and the Charles Norman Prize and during 2019 / 2020 were a Young Artist at London’s National Opera Studio. They currently study with Elizabeth Ritchie. Accolades include the Lesley Garrett Opera Prize (David Clover Singers Platform), finalist in the Vincerò Opera Competition, and a finalist in the Royal Overseas League Vocal Competition.
Recent engagements have included Paris in Bampton Classical Opera’s production of Paris and Helen by Gluck, Sparrow in Rylan Gleave’s Powder Down for Shadwell Opera’s Digital Commission Series, Josquin des Prez: Mille Regretz for English Touring Opera’s Spring 2021 Digital Season and Pierrot Lunaire with The Façade Ensemble, Momentum: Our Future, Now Recitals with Roderick Williams for the 2021 Brighton Festival and at Vinehall School and The Cock The Cunning Little Vixen on tour with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. They were also an Emerging Artist for Oxford Lieder’s Autumn 2021 season.
Notable concert highlights include Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs at Sheffield Cathedral, Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire at the Royal Academy of Music, and a performance on BBC Radio 3 of Oliver Knussen’s Trumpets at the British Composer Awards. Their BBC broadcasts further include Music Matters and their concert repertoire includes many of the major oratorios by J. S. Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mozart. Their recordings include Burst forth my tears / Flow my tears (featuring music by John Dowland arranged for synthesisers), available on Classical Remix.
Ella Taylor is a keen collaborator and recitalist, making a dedicated effort to work with and perform works by people underrepresented in classical music. Recent collaborations include the project After Violence with _REMIX; an exploration of violence and masculinity through a queer lens with drag artist Rhys’s Pieces, as well as working with composers and librettists in the creation of new, LGBT+ work. Recently, they gave a talk for the Royal Opera House’s Engender 2021 Festival about navigating a career as a trans opera singer, and how companies can be the most effective allies they can be. A film with the newly formed Trans Voices Choir (part of London Contemporary Voices) will be released on Guardian Films, which Ella is a founding member of. They have also performed at Leeds Lieder as part of the Composer and Poets Forum and with Ensemble 360 at Music in the Round.
Their current engagements include The Fox (Cover) The Cunning Little Vixen for English National Opera, Gerda in Errolyn Wallen’s The Paradis Files for Graeae, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with Opus 48 and Alicia Jane Turner’s Tell me when you get home with the London Sinfonietta. They are scheduled to make their debut at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in the 2022 / 2023 season.
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British Bass-Baritone Dingle Yandell studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Brian Parsons and now studies singing independently with Jessica Cash. He is an alumnus of the National Opera Studio and a 'Rising Star' of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, He is the grateful recipient of a Sybil Tutton Opera Award administered by Help Musicians UK.
Recent operatic roles have included Count Ceprano from Rigoletto and Immigration Officer in Flight for Scottish Opera. The Doctor from Pelléas et Mélisande and Don Geronio (cover) for Garsington Opera. Seneca from Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea with Bach Collegium Japan and Plutone in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo for L'Arpeggiata, The Cold Genius and Aeolus in King Arthur across Europe with Gabrieli. He recently understudied Sparafucile in Rigoletto for Scottish Opera, and for Garsington Opera Sarastro in The Magic Flute and La Roche in Capriccio. The 2019 season will see Dingle covering Aye in Akhnaten at English National Opera and singing the roles of Speaker and Sarastro in The Magic Flute and Angelotti in Tosca for Scottish Opera.
Dingle has been selected as one of the Rising Stars for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, recent engagements include Soloist in Israel in Egypt with William Christie at the BBC Proms, The Creation conducted by Adam Fischer and Harmoniemesse conducted by Andras Schiff, Himmelskonig sei willkommen for Bach, The Universe & Everything series, the world premiere of The Judas Passion by Sally Beamish. At the Wigmore Hall New Years Eve concert he was soloist in Begin The Song by Purcell with Arcangelo. He sings regularly with the Early Opera Company, Holland Baroque and Les Invention. Other solo concert engagements have included Bach B Minor Mass at Cadogan Hall, Bach Christmas Oratorio and Handel Messiah at Hitomi Hall, Tokyo, and with the Orchestra of Opera North, Bach Wachet Auf and Erfreut Euch at Dijon Opera House, Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music directed by John Wilson at The Royal Festival Hall, Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols at Isumi Hall, Osaka, Purcell O Sing Unto the Lord with Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort, Phoebus in Purcell Dido and Aeneas with Christina Pluhar and L'Arpeggiata at The Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht. Beethoven 9th Symphony at Colston Hall in Bristol, Theodora with Basingstoke Choral Society, Dvorak Stabat Mater at Winchester Cathedral, Rossini Stabat Mater for the Rossini Society, Mendelssohn Elijah at Nantwich Civic Hall, Verdi Requiem at The Victoria Hall in Hanley. The end of the year will see Dingle singing Pilate and the Bass arias in St John Passion with Musica Viva Chmaber Orchestra in Moscow.
For eight years Dingle toured internationally with the award-winning British ensemble Voces8. Notable performances include Tokyo Opera City and Oji Hall, Tokyo, The Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall, St Petersburg, Moscow International House of Music, National Centre for Performing Arts, Beijing, National Concert Hall, Taipei, The Rheingau Festival, Germany, Köln Cathedral, The Minneapolis Basilica, The Wigmore Hall, Cité de la Musique, Paris, and Tel Aviv Opera House. He has also appeared regularly on BBC Radio, Classic FM and MPR and made many recordings for Signum Records and Decca Classics.
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