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The Tosti International Singing Academy – Artists
Sir Thomas Allen | baritone
Sir Thomas Allen is an established star of the great opera houses of the world. At the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where in 2011 he celebrated the 40th anniversary of his debut with the company, he has sung over fifty roles. The same year he also celebrated the 30th anniversary of his debut at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. He has been particularly acclaimed for his Billy Budd, Pelléas, Eugene Onegin, Ulisse and Beckmesser, as well as the great Mozart roles of Count Almaviva, Don Alfonso, Papageno, Guglielmo and, of course, Don Giovanni.
His recent engagements have included the title role in Gianni Schicchi for Los Angeles Opera and at the Spoleto Festival; the title role in Sweeney Todd, Beckmesser (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg),Faninal (Der Rosenkavalier), Prosdocimo (Il turco in Italia), Music Master (Ariadne auf Naxos), Peter (Hänsel und Gretel) and Don Alfonso at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus), Don Alfonso, Ulisse and Don Giovanni at the Bayerische Staatsoper; Faninal at the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia; Eisenstein at the Glyndebourne Festival; Don Alfonso at the Dallas Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and at the Salzburg Easter and Summer Festivals; Forester (The Cunning Little Vixen) at the San Francisco Opera and Beckmesser, Don Alfonso and Music Master at the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
Iain Burnside | piano
Thanks to prolific careers both as pianist and award-winning broadcaster, Iain is one of the UK’s best-known musicians.
Iain has worked with a broad roster of international singers: Dame Margaret Price, Rosa Feola, Ailish Tynan, Joyce DiDonato, Laurence Brownlee, Roderick Williams, and Bryn Terfel, among many others. He has recorded more than 60 CDs, often created around neglected composers, where his curatorial skills are displayed to the full. He is a great champion of young singers, playing a crucial role in introducing them to a wider audience. Recent highlights include a Rachmaninov Song Series at Wigmore Hall with outstanding Slavic singers, following his acclaimed Delphian recordings of Rachmaninov and Medtner. Other Delphian collaborations range from Schubert Lieder to songs from each of Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland.
Innovative programme planning has led Iain to expand his concert work into a hybrid form of music theatre, creating staged work around Brahms (Shining Armour), Wagner (The View from the Villa) and Gurney (A Soldier and a Maker). He has broadcast extensively on both radio and TV, notably as host of BBC R3’s acclaimed Voices series.
In addition to a long association with London’s Guildhall School, Iain is Visiting International Artist at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin. Competitions where he has served as a jury member include Concours Reine Elisabeth in Brussels, Busoni and Honens piano competitions and Wigmore Hall International Song Competition. He is Artistic Director of the Ludlow English Song Weekend and Artistic Consultant to Grange Park Opera, Surrey.
David Butt Philip | tenor
One of the most exciting tenors Britain has to offer today, David Butt Philip is quickly becoming a firm favourite on the major international stages. An alumnus of the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme, his recent debuts in roles such as the title role of Lohengrin and Stolzing in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Wiener Staatsoper; Florestan in Fidelio and the Prince in Rusalka at the Royal Opera House; Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Edinburgh International Festival and Bayerische Staatsoper; and the title roles in Der Zwerg and Lohengrin at Deutsche Oper Berlin, have earned him major critical and public acclaim.
This 2025–26 season, Butt Philip’s highlights include his highly anticipated company and role debut as Siegmund in Die Walküre in David McVicar’s new Ring at Teatro alla Scala under the baton of Alexander Soddy; a return to the Wiener Staatsoper as Florestan in a new production of Fidelio; and Bacchus in Laurent Pelly’s new production of Ariadne auf Naxos with the Glyndebourne Festival under the baton of Robin Ticciati.
Further highlights this season include his company debut as the Prince in Rusalka at the Royal Swedish Opera and his return to the role of Apollo in Daphne with Seattle Opera. On the concert platform, performances include Das Lied von der Erde at Deutsche Oper Berlin and at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía under the baton of Sir Mark Elder; Erik in concert performances of Der fliegende Holländer; Gurre-Lieder and a Liederabend with James Baillieu at the Tokyo Spring Festival; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Royal Albert Hall; Florestan in Fidelio in concert with The Cleveland Orchestra; Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fabio Luisi; Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos in concert with the Bayerische Staatsoper Orchestra at the Herkulessaal; and The Dream of Gerontius with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican under the baton of Sir Antonio Pappano.Last season, Butt Philip returned to the Metropolitan Opera as Florestan in Fidelio, a role he also performed at the Semperoper Dresden in his company debut. He also reprised the title role of Lohengrin at the Wiener Staatsoper under the baton of Christian Thielemann and the title role in Der Zwerg at Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he also starred as the Kaiser in a new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten. On the concert platform, he performed the Glagolitic Mass and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Czech Philharmonic; the title role of Candide in concert performances at Semperoper Dresden; and The Dream of Gerontius for the Huddersfield Choral Society and the Opera North Orchestra under conductor Martyn Brabbins.
Further highlights included several appearances at the Wiener Staatsoper (Laca Jenůfa, Stolzing in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Don José in Carmen, Apollo in Daphne and the title role in Lohengrin); Don José in Carmen, and the title roles in Der Zwerg and Lohengrin at the Deutsche Oper Berlin; Florestan in Fidelio and Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Bayerische Staatsoper; his company and role debut at the San Francisco Opera as Der Kaiser in David Hockney’s production of Die Frau ohne Schatten, conducted by Sir David Runnicles; and a return to the Royal Opera House as the Prince in a new contemporary staging of Rusalka by Natalie Abrahami and Ann Yee. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Grigory in Boris Godunov and in the American premiere of Brett Dean’s Hamlet as Laertes; Boris in a new production of Káťa Kabanová at the Salzburg Festival and at Glyndebourne; the title role in Brett Dean’s Hamlet, this time in a new production by Matthew Jocelyn in Cologne; the Prince in Christof Loy’s new production of Rusalka; Froh in Das Rheingold; and Essex in Sir David McVicar’s new production of Gloriana, all at Teatro Real. He also appeared as Erik in Der fliegende Holländer at Opéra de Lille; Florestan in Fidelio at the National Theatre in Prague and subsequently at the Royal Opera House in Tobias Kratzer’s acclaimed production, replacing an ailing Jonas Kaufmann. The performance starring Butt Philip and Lise Davidsen was subsequently aired on BBC Four and met with great acclaim.
British audiences have seen him at the Royal Opera House as the Prince in Rusalka, Grigory in Boris Godunov, Narraboth in Salome, and in a Christmas concert conducted by Mark Wigglesworth; at English National Opera as Rodolfo in their Drive & Live production of La Bohème, Daniel Kramer’s new production of Britten’s War Requiem— for which he was nominated for an Olivier Award—Don José in Carmen and Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly; at Opera Holland Park in his role debut as Canio in Pagliacci, as Count Vaudémont in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and as Folco in Mascagni’s Isabeau; at Opera North as Laca in Jenůfa and Luigi in Il Tabarro; and at Glyndebourne as Laertes in the premiere of Brett Dean’s Hamlet at the Glyndebourne Festival and later as the title role on tour. His notable concert appearances include Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with Staatskapelle Dresden under the baton of Christian Thielemann and at the Bergen International Festival with Edward Gardner; his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in Dvořák’s Stabat Mater conducted by Jakub Hrůša; Stolzing in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for his debut at the Spring Festival in Tokyo; and Schönberg’s Gurre-Lieder with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Edward Gardner.
Born and brought up in Wells, Somerset, Butt Philip was a chorister at Peterborough Cathedral. He is a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, and the National Opera Studio, and was also a Samling Artist, an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, and winner of the prestigious John Christie Award in 2011.
Hugh Canning | critic and writer
Hugh Canning attended his first opera 50 years ago and started writing about classical music in national newspapers five years later. Over a career of 45 years he has been one of the foremost classical critics, feature and opinion piece writers, contributing to international publications such as Opera, Opéra and Oper! magazines, The Western Mail (1977 – 84) The Guardian (1983 – 1989), The London Daily News (1987), and The Sunday Times (1989 – 2022), of which he was Chief Classical Critic from 1994, the year he was named Critic of the Year in The Press Awards. He has been an occasional contributor to both The Australian and The New York Times, and is regarded worldwide as a leading classical music writer in the English Language.
Hugh studied Modern Languages, French and German, at Pembroke College Oxford (1972 – 76) and began attending opera and concerts in London and abroad as a student. During his year abroad, 1974/75, in Aachen, West Germany, he attended over 150 performances at Theater Aachen, Oper Köln, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Deutsche Oper and Staatsoper Berlin, Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, Verona and Bregenz Festival, laying the foundations of a wealth of live performance experience with few rivals among contemporary writers.
During the last 40 years, he has interviewed and profiled many of the most prominent musicians of our time for Opera, The Guardian and The Sunday Times.
Dame Sarah Connelly | mezzo-soprano
Born in County Durham, Sarah Connolly studied piano and singing at the Royal College of Music, of which she is now a Fellow. She was made a DBE in the 2017 Birthday Honours, having previously been made a CBE in the 2010 New Year’s Honours. In 2011 she was honoured by the Incorporated Society of Musicians and presented with the Distinguished Musician Award. She is the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s 2012 Singer Award.
Highlights in her 2017/18 season include her debut at the Wiener Staatsoper in a new production of Ariodante, the title role in Giulio Cesare at the Glyndebourne Festival and Brangäne Tristan und Isolde for the Gran Teatro del Liceu. Past highlights have included Fricka (Covent Garden & Bayreuther Festspiele) Brangäne Tristan und Isolde (Covent Garden & Festspielhaus Baden-Baden); Komponist Ariadne auf Naxos and Clairon Capriccio (Metropolitan Opera); the title role in Giulio Cesare, Brangäne and Gertrude in the world premiere of Brett Dean’s Hamlet (Glyndebourne Festival); the title role in Ariodante and Sesto La clemenza di Tito (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence); Purcell’s Dido (Teatro alla Scala & Covent Garden); Jocaste in Enescu’s Œdipe (Covent Garden); Gluck’s Orfeo and the title role in The Rape of Lucretia (Bayerische Staatsoper); Phèdre Hippolyte et Aricie (Opéra national de Paris) and the title role in Agrippina and Nerone L’Incoronazione di Poppea (Gran Teatro del Liceu). She has also sung the title role in Maria Stuarda and Roméo I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Opera North); Komponist (Welsh National Opera) and Octavian Der Rosenkavalier (Scottish Opera).
A favorite at the English National Opera, her many roles for the company have included Geschwitz Lulu; Octavian; the title roles in Charpentier’s Medée and Handel’s Agrippina, Xerxes, Ariodante and Ruggiero Alcina; the title role in The Rape of Lucretia; Didon Les Troyens; Roméo, Susie The Silver Tassie and Sesto – for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera. The future sees her return to the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, the Opéra national de Paris and make her debut at the Teatro Réal in Madrid.
Her many concert engagements include appearances at the Lucerne, Salzburg, Tanglewood and Three Choirs Festivals and at the BBC Proms where, in 2009, she was a memorable guest soloist at The Last Night. Other notable engagements have included The Dream of Gerontius (Boston Symphony Orchestra/Sir Colin Davis & Mozarteumorchester Salzburg/Bolton); Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 at the BBC Proms (LSO/Haitink); A Child of our Time and Brangäne (Berliner Philharmoniker/Rattle); Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (Leipzig Gewandhausorchester/Chailly, Boston Symphony Orchestra/von Dohnanyi & Philadelphia Orchestra/Nézet-Séguin); Das Lied von der Erde (Concertgebouworkest/Harding, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra/Nézet-Séguin & LPO/Jurowski); Des Knaben Wunderhorn (L’Orchestre des Champs-Elysées/Herreweghe) and La mort de Cléopâtre (Hallé/Elder, CBSO/Gardner & BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sir Andrew Davis). She has appeared in recital in London, New York, Boston, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Atlanta, Stuttgart; at the Incontri in Terra di Siena La Foce and the Schubertiada Vilabertran and at the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and Oxford Lieder Festivals.
Committed to promoting new music, her world premiere performances include two re-discovered songs by Benjamin Britten (BBC Proms 2018) with Joseph Middleton; Sir John Tavener’s Gnosis, (BBCProms); songs by Mark Anthony Turnage, Sally Beamish and Dame Judith Weir, Jonathan Harvey.
Paul Daniel | conductor
Paul Daniel was Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia from 2012 – 2022 and Music Director of the Orchestre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine from 2013 – 2021. He held the same post at the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in Perth from 2009 – 2013. He has appeared as a guest conductor with major orchestras and opera companies throughout the world as well as holding several permanent positions. From 1997 to 2005 he was Music Director of English National Opera; from 1990 to 1997 he was Music Director of Opera North and Principal Conductor of the English Northern Philharmonia; and from 1987 to 1990 he was Music Director of Opera Factory. Operatic guest engagements have included the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, the Semperoper Dresden and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Paul Daniel’s orchestral engagements have included performances with the Philharmonia, LondonPhilharmonic, the OAE (with whom he recorded Elijah for Decca), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestre de Paris, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Real Filharmonia de Galicia, Orchestre National Bordeaux Acquitaine, Tampere Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Recent and future operatic plans include Lucrezia Borgia and The Marriage of Figaro for English National Opera, Gloriana for Covent Garden, a new commission by Judith Weir for the Bregenz Festival and Covent Garden, Lulu for La Monnaie in Brussels, a double bill of L’Enfant et les sortilèges, and Der Zwerg for Opéra National de Paris, Les Troyens for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Hänsel und Gretel in Zürich, A Village Romeo and Juliet for Oper Frankfurt, Werther For the New National Theatre Tokyo, the world premiere of Ruders’ The Thirteenth Child in Santa Fe, and Elektra, Tristan und Isolde and Die Walküre in Bordeaux. Orchestral engagements, apart from his work in Bordeaux, include concerts with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, DSO Berlin, BBC Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Hamburg Symphony, Munich Rundfunkorchester, Australian National Academy of Music, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and at the Bregenz Festival. In 2022/23 he returned to Bordeaux for Madama Butterfly, conducted a new production of Die Zauberflöte for Welsh National Opera and Offenbach’s La Princesse de Trébizonde with the London Philharmonic for Opera Rara, which was just released on CD and has won multiple awards.
His many recordings include the hugely successful CD of Elgar’s Third Symphony on Naxos, and anexpanding discography with Orchestra National de Bordeaux Aquitaine, including discs of Wagner, Mahler and Tchaikovsky. His performance of Lulu for La Monnaie, with Barbara Hannigan in the title role, has been released as an award-winning DVD.
In 1998 Paul Daniel received an Olivier Award for outstanding achievement in opera and was awarded the CBE in the 2000 New Year’s Honours list.
Brian Dickie | director
Brian Dickie has worked in opera for over six decades and stepped down in August 2012 as General Director of Chicago Opera Theatre where he had been since 1999.
After leaving Trinity College Dublin in 1961 he began his opera career at the Glyndebourne Festival in England in 1962, as assistant to the Head of Music Staff, Jani Strasser. He remained at Glyndebourne for twenty-seven years with increasing responsibilities. He was a leading member of the team whichestablished Glyndebourne Touring Opera, and became the company’s first Administrator in 1967, as well as serving as Opera Manager for the Festival. He was appointed General Administrator of Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1981.
Brian was appointed Artistic Director of the Wexford Festival at the age of 25 in 1967 and served there until 1973 when his Glyndebourne and family responsibilities became too onerous. In 1989 he left Glyndebourneto become General Director of the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto. He was Artistic Adviser to theOpéra de Nice 1994-97, and General Director of the European Union Opera project 1996-98, recruiting singers for the company from each member country of the European Union.
He has been Chairman of the Jury for Pre-selections for the Bertelsmann Foundation’s biennial Neue Stimmen Competition since 1999. In this capacity he has been responsible for auditioning singers in Asia, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and both North and South America. Between 1999 and 2012 he was a regular jury member for the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions, at both district and regional level. He was a member of the jury the final stage in 2007 that was the subject of the Metropolitan Opera’s documentary film Audition. In addition to serving on juries for singing competitions he was a jury member for the Carl Nielsen Flute competition in Odense, Denmark in 2014 and the Nikolai Maiko conductors’ competition in Copenhagen.
Caroline Dowdle | vocal coach
Caroline Dowdle is the Head of Opera at the Verbier Festival Atelier Lyrique. Much in demand as a pianist and vocal coach, she works regularly with singers on the Jette Parker Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, CoventGarden, and is a member of the vocal faculty at the Royal College of Music in London. She has also been a guest coach on the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Programme, at the Estonian National Opera and in Beijing, together with regular visits to Berlin as a faculty member of the annual summer Dramatic Lyric Voices course. In the UK, she has a long association with the Samling Institute, where she is a leader in its masterclass weeks, alongside her role as Music Director of the Samling Academy, a masterclass programme for young singers aged 14-21.
Born in Cape Town, Caroline’s performing career began at an early age. She studied at the University of Cape Town, before moving to England to study solo piano at the Royal Northern College of Music. After two years as a Junior Fellow in Manchester,she moved to London to pursue a freelance career and has been based there ever since. She has performed widely inthe UK and Europe, giving recitals with singers and instrumentalists at the Royal Opera House, the South Bank and Wigmore Hall in London, at New York’s Carnegie Hall, and in Paris (for Radio France), Madrid, Valencia and Moscow. Amongst her many musical collaborations are long-standing partnerships with baritones Sir Thomas Allen and Sir Simon Keenlyside.
Her busy diary will include new ventures for 2024, with masterclasses scheduled at the Internationalen Meistersinger Akademie in Neumarkt, and a first visit to New Zealand to work with the Young Artists at the TANZOS conservatoire.
John Fisher | opera director
John Fisher studied at Glasgow University and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama and The London Opera Centre. His career, which began as Music Director of Welsh National Opera’s ‘Opera for All’ project, has included work at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie (Brussels), Nederlands Opera (Amsterdam), La Scala (Milan), where he was also Artistic Administrator, and as the first non-Italian to be appointed Artistic Director in a state-funded Italian opera house, at the Teatro alla Fenice (Venice). He was Director of Opera and Vocal Productions and Executive Producer at Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, Hamburg, and Director of Music Administration at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. In 2006, he took up the post of Chief Executive and Artistic Director at Welsh National Opera, a role he held for five years. He subsequently returned to the Metropolitan opera as Assistant General Manager.
John has collaborated throughout his career with the industry’s most distinguished conductors, includingClaudio Abbado, Carlos Kleiber and Sir Georg Solti. He has also worked extensively with many of the world’s greatest opera stars, notably José Carreras, Marilyn Horne, Luciano Pavarotti and Dame Joan Sutherland. John’s recent work in New York has also featured engagement with the Young Artists programme at the Metropolitan Opera and at the world-renowned Juilliard School. As Hodge International Chair in Opera since 2015 he has been a regular visiting artist at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama working with many young singers on the College’s Master’s programme in Advanced Opera Performance.
Ben Glassberg | conductor
British conductor Ben Glassberg is fast becoming one of the most sought-after conductors on the global stage. Described as conducting with ‘irresistible panache’ (The Guardian), his highly detailed and sophisticated interpretations of vast repertoire on both the operatic and concert platform are revelatory.As Music Director of Opéra de Rouen Normandie (since 2021/22), titles in the 2025/26 season include Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta in concert and a series of farewell concerts to mark the end of his successful tenure. Glassberg will also make his house debut at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma with a new prododuction of Britten’s Turn of the Screw alongside his much anticipated return to the Deutsche Oper Berlin for Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. On the concert platform, Glassberg will join Bergen Philharmonic, Graz Philharmoniker, Brussels Philharmonic, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
Glassberg is the former Associate Guest Conductor of the Orchestre National de Lyon, whom he continues to conduct regularly. His recent symphonic highlights include a debut with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and a return to the Teatro Massimo di Palermo, appearances with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and amongst others.
As former Music Director of the Volksoper Wien, Glassberg conducted titles including Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Bizet’s Carmen, Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, Humperdink’s Hansel und Gretel, Le Nozze di Figaro Puccini’s La bohème, and a new production of Bernstein’s West Side Story. Recent operatic highlights include his house debuts at Hamburg State Opera with La Clemenza di Tito, the Deutsche Oper Berlin andThéâtre des Champs-Elysées with Carmen, as well as conducting Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites, Carmen, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Opéra de Rouen Normandie.
As Principal Conductor of the Glyndebourne Tour (2019-2021), Glassberg conducted productions of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, Offenbach’s Mesdames de la Halle, Beethoven’s Fidelio and Handel’s Messiah. Following his debut at the 2017 Glyndebourne Festival, Glassberg has returned frequently for performances including Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Verdi’s La traviata and in 2022, conducted Mariame Clement’s production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. Elsewhere, Glassberg’s growing reputation has resulted in a number of re-invitations to some of Europe’s most prestigious houses, with highlights including the complete Mozart/DaPonte trilogy and a new production of Britten’s The Turn of The Screw for La Monnaie and La bohème for English National Opera.
As a recording artist, Glassberg has a diverse discography including award-winning albums for WarnerClassics with guitarist Thibaut Garcia and mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa. Most recently, Glassberg has released recordings of The Turn of the Screw (Alpha Classics, May 2022), Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito (Alpha Classics, November 2022) and an album of works by Camille Pépin (NoMadMusic, April 2023).
Glassberg first came to international attention upon winning the Grand Prix at the 55th Besançon Young Conductors Competition 2017 at the age of 23.
Vlad Iftinca | vocal coach
Born in Romania, Vlad Iftinca received his primary education at Reina Sofia School of Music and the Real Conservatorio in Madrid, Spain. He pursued additional studies at Southern Methodist University, theMannes School of Music and The Juilliard School in New York.
He has collaborated with distinguished singers such as Deborah Voigt, Hei-Kyung Hong, Thomas Hampson, Luca Pisaroni, Shenyang and Isabel Leonard. Recent recital appearances include Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall in New York City, Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Conservatory, the Seoul PerformingArts Center, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, Minnesota Beethoven Festival and the Ravinia Festival’s “Rising Stars” recital series. At the Met, he has worked under the baton of prestigious conductors such as James Levine, Sir Andrew Davis, Valery Gergiev and Marco Armiliato.
Vlad Iftinca is currently part of the 2019-2020 Oper Stuttgart assistant conductor roster. Between 2007-2014, he held the position of staff coach for the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera, where he has also been part of the music staff between 2007-2019.
As a conductor, he has led performances at the Frankfurt Oper, Oper Stuttgart, San Antonio Opera, amongothers. Mr. Iftinca has collaborated in recital with distinguished artists such as Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Deborah Voigt, Thomas Hampson, Hei Kyung Hong, Luca Pisaroni, Joan Rodgers, Isabel Leonard, Erin Morley and Elza van der Heever. In 2017, his live recital recording with soprano Lisette Oropesa, ‘Within/Without’, was released commercially to great acclaim.
Yuri Ilinov | conductor
Yuri was born in Volgograd in 1982. He is an assistant to the Principal Conductor of the Volgograd Academic Symphony Orchestra, a senior lecturer at the Volgograd State Institute of Arts and Culture. Yuri is also studying at the conducting faculty of the Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatoire.
Bénédicte Jourdois | pianist
A graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at The Metropolitan Opera, BénédicteJourdois is currently on music staff at the Metropolitan Opera and on faculty at the Juilliard School.
Ms Jourdois has performed in numerous venues in Europe and in the United States, including Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. As a coach and pianist, she has worked with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera Ryan OperaCenter, Pittsburgh Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Opera Saratoga, Palm Beach Opera, Washington Concert Opera, American Lyric Theatre, the Chautauqua Institution voice program, the Castleton Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, Carnegie Hall’s SongStudio, Rice University, the University of Michigan, Rutgers University, and many others.
She was a faculty member at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia from 2013 to 2016 and at the Manhattan School of Music from 2011 to 2018. Born in Paris, Ms Jourdois holds degrees from the Conservatoire National de Region de Saint-Maur, the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Lyon, Mannes College, and the Juilliard School.
Adrian Kelly | conductor
Following his studies at the University of Cambridge, English conductor Adrian Kelly became a member ofthe Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, before becoming a coach at the Hamburg State Opera.
He has worked regularly at the Salzburg Festival, assisting Ingo Metzmacher on Luigi Nono’s Al gran sole carico d’amore and Wolfgang Rihm’s Dionysos. He has also worked with conductors such as Antonio Pappano, Mark Elder, Peter Schneider, Nicola Luisotti, Philippe Jordan and Simone Young. He has beenmusical director of the Young Singers Project at the Salzburg Festival since 2015.
His engagements include appearances at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and a tour of the USAconducting the Baroque pasticcio The Infernal Comedy with John Malkovich. During the summer of 2014 he conducted a new production of Le nozze di Figaro at Central City Opera in Colorado.
From 2010 to 2017 Adrian Kelly was first Kapellmeister at the Salzburg Landestheater, working regularly with the Mozarteum Orchestra. He has conducted numerous productions in Salzburg, including Krenek’s Jonny spielt auf, Verdi’s Rigoletto and Massenet’s Werther. In February 2016 he conducted the critically acclaimed Austrian premiere of Charles Wuorinen’s Brokeback Mountain. Recent highlights in Salzburg include Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel in the Felsenreitschule and Puccini’s La bohème at the Haus für Mozart. During the 2018/19 seasonhe conducted Massenet’s Manon and a cycle of Mozart’s three Da Ponte operas at the Salzburg Landestheater.
In June 2018 Adrian Kelly was appointed artistic director of the Buxton Festival. In July 2023 he conducted new productions there of Bellini’s La sonnambula as well as Mozart’s Il re pastore. He has been the head of the International Opera Studio at the Zurich Opera House since the start of the 2020/21 season. In 2022/23 he conducted a new production of Wolfgang Rihm’s Jakob Lenz as well as a revival of Donizetti’s Viva la mamma (Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali) at the Zurich Opera House.
Sholto Kynoch | pianist
Sholto Kynoch is a sought-after pianist who specialises in song and chamber music. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the Oxford International Song Festival (formerly Oxford Lieder), which won a prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award in 2015, cited for its ‘breadth, depth and audacity’ of programming. In July 2018, Sholto was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in the RAM Honours.
Working with many of today’s leading singers, recent recitals have taken him to Wigmore Hall, Heidelberger Frühling, Beethovenfest Bonn, the Zeist International Lied Festival in the Netherlands, the LIFE Victoria festival and Palau de la Música in Barcelona, the Fundación Juan March in Madrid, the Opéra de Lille,Opernhaus Zürich, Maison Symphonique de Montréal, Queensland Art Song Festival in Australia, and many other leading venues and festivals nationally and internationally.
His extensive discography includes the first complete edition of the songs of Hugo Wolf, recorded live at the Oxford International Song Festival, the final volume of which was released in January 2023. He has also recorded the complete songs of John Ireland and Havergal Brian, as well as recital discs of Schubert and Schumann songs.
Jennifer Larmore | mezzo-soprano
Jennifer Larmore is one of the most distinguished mezzo-sopranos of our time. She has a wide-ranging repertoire, excelling in the coloratura roles of Baroque and bel canto, in addition to music from the Romantic and Contemporary periods.
Performances in 2025 and 2026 include Countess in The Queen of Spades at the Teatro Regio of Turin and at Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she also sang her first Madelon in Andrea Chénier, as well asMarcellina in Le nozze di Figaro at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.
Recent performances include Herodias in Salome at the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Marcellina in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées of Paris and for her role debut in concert with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, her role debut as Herodias at the Atlanta Opera, the title role in a new production of La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and Fidalma in Il matrimonio segreto at Oper Köln, the title role of La belle Hélène at the Hamburg State Opera and Die Dame in Cardillac at the Maggio Musicale in Florence.
In recent years Ms Larmore has evolved into an exciting singing actress, adding roles such as Countess Geschwitz in Lulu (Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Teatro Real Madrid, Dutch National Opera Amsterdam, Rome Opera House), Kostelnička in Jenufa (Deutsche Oper Berlin, New National TheatreTokyo), Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth (Geneva, Bologna), Eboli in Don Carlos (Caramoor Festival), Mère Marie in The Dialogues of the Carmelites (Caramoor Festival), the title role of La belle Hélène (Hamburg State Opera), Marie in Wozzeck (Geneva) and Anna 1 in Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins (Atlanta).
Among her many career highlights are her debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia in 1995, where she later sang the title roles of Giulio Cesare, La Cenerentola and L’italiana in Algeri; Giulietta in Les contes d’Hoffmann, Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel,Gertrude in Hamlet by Thomas and the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy. Other engagements have led her to virtually every major opera house in the world, including La Scala, Paris Opera, Berlin Deutsche Oper, Vienna State Opera and Covent Garden.
Originally from Atlanta, Ms Larmore studied with Dr. Robert McIver at the Westminster Choir College of Princeton, New Jersey and then privately with John Bullock and Regina Resnik. She made her professional debut in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito in 1986 at the Opéra de Nice. During the same period, she sang her first Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia in Strasbourg. Rosina quickly became her signature role, having performed it more than six hundred times.
She has sung with all the major international orchestras and under the baton of many of the most prestigious conductors such as Muti, López-Cobos, Perez, Bernstein, Runnicles, Sinopoli, Masur, von Dohnányi, Jacobs, Mackerras, Spinosi, Guidarini, Kalmar, Rudel, Barenboim, Queler, Bonynge, Maazel, Osawa and Hengelbrock.
Since the beginning of her career, Jennifer Larmore has recorded widely for the Teldec, RCA, Harmonia Mundi, Deutsch Grammophon, Arabesque, Opera Rara, Bayer, Naive, Chandos, VAI and Cedille labels in over one hundred CDs to date. In addition to her many activities, travels, performances and causes, “author” Jennifer Larmore has released the book “UnaVoce” which addresses issues pertaining to the opera singer’s life.
In collaboration with double bass player Davide Vittone, Jennifer Larmore has created an ensemble calledJennifer Larmore and OpusFive. The three programs they offer are entertaining and varied with Songs andArias, Cabaret/Operetta, Movies and Broadway which feature string quintet and voice. They have given concerts in Seville, Pamplona, Valencia, Las Palmas, Mallorca, Menorca, Venice, Aix en Provence, Amiens, Olten, Paris, Mersin and Dublin.
David Lomelí | director
David Lomelí became the very first Latino in US history to occupy a top artistic position at a Level 1 opera Company when he was named the Director of Artistic Administration at The Dallas Opera in 2018. In September 2019, he joined the team at the historic Bavarian State Opera in Munich where he was part of the team casting more than 30 new productions and 50 revival productions for the 2021-2025 seasons, becoming the very first Hispanic ever to hold the position of Head of Casting in a top 5 company in the world.
In April 2021, he joined the Santa Fe Opera in a newly created position as Chief Artistic Officer, overseeing all the company’s artistic output. After a full calendar year with the company and managing the festivals of 2021 and 2022, Santa Fe Opera won “Festival of the Year” at the International Opera Awards in November 2022. The Bayerische Staatsoper also won best Company of the Year in 2023.
During his time with The Dallas Opera, Lomelí was involved in the commissioning and producing of five world premieres, and facilitated the debuts of major International and US stars. He is most proud of hiswork with The Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute for Women Conductors (HIWC), where he and his team recruited over 400 conductors with applications spanning more than 30 countries and 50 US women administrators and helped raised more than $7 million in foundation grants and individual gifts. During the pandemic, Lomelí created the TDO Network for The Dallas Opera, which generated more than 300 million views on its social media handles for the company from March 2020 to April 2021.
Before joining TDO, Mr. Lomelí performed as a world-renowned tenor with many top leading companies, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Glyndebourne Festival, Santa Fe Opera, Los Angeles Opera, and San Francisco Opera. He is a recipient of the National Youth Prize in the Arts, presented by the Mexican government, and won first prize in bothcategories of opera and zarzuela in Plácido Domingo’s 2006 Operalia. Mr. Lomelí is an alumnus of someof the most prestigious training programs for opera artists, including the Domingo-Colburn-Stein YoungArtist Program at LA Opera, the Merola Opera Program, and Adler Fellowship at the San Francisco Opera, and the International Society of Mexican Art and Values in México City.
He earned an undergraduate degree in computer science engineering at the Instituto Tecnológico y deEstudios Superiores de Monterrey in México and a graduate degree in international marketing from la Universidad Politécnica de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain.
Louisa Muller | stage director
Heralded by Opera News for her “absorbing, provocative staging,” this season Louisa Muller makes debuts creating new productions of Le nozze di Figaro for Opera North, The Bartered Bride for Irish National Opera, and Puts and Campbell’s Elizabeth Cree for Music Academy of the West. She returns to Garsington Opera to revive her acclaimed production of La traviata and acts as Associate Director of Bartlett Sher’s production of To Kill a Mockingbird for its tour across the United Kingdom and Ireland andits return to the West End. Last season, she revived her production of La traviata in her debut with The Dallas Opera and The Turn of the Screw for her return to Santa Fe Opera, as well as directing a new production of Dialogues des Carmélites for The Juilliard School and the National Opera Studio residency at Opera North. Future seasons see her European debut of a new production of Der kleine Prinz for the MusikTheater an der Wien, her new production debutwith the Metropolitan Opera, and a return to Garsington Opera, as well as revivals of her productions with Canadian Opera Company and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Last season, she returned to Garsington Opera to direct Platée and made debuts with Santa Fe Opera with La traviata for the company’s opening night and Pinchgut Opera with Rinaldo, all new productions.
Louisa is a recent International Opera Awards finalist in the Director and Newcomer categories. Her recent production of The Turn of the Screw for Garsington Opera received the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award and was named by The Guardian as one of the Top Ten Classical Music Performances of the Year. She subsequently returned to Garsington for a new production of Platée. She created new productions of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers for Houston Grand Opera, La traviata for Santa Fe Opera, and Rinaldo for Pinchgut Opera in widely praised debuts.
She received rich critical acclaim for her staging of Das Rheingold with the New York Philharmonic, which the New York Times called “riveting…a remarkable evening of music theater” and named among its list of theBest Classical Music Performances of the Year. She has created new productions of Amadigi di Gaula for Boston Baroque and Philharmonia Baroque and The Rake’s Progress for The Juilliard School. In addition, she directed concert stagings of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Edinburgh International Festival and Don Giovanni at the Royal Conservatory Antwerp.
She has been a frequent and beloved presence at Wolf Trap Opera, where she has directed new productions of Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles, The Rape of Lucretia, Tosca, and Roméo et Juliette. She has led productions of Tannhäuser and Don Carlo with Los Angeles Opera and La traviata for Minnesota Opera and has returnedto the Lyric Opera of Chicago to direct Madama Butterfly, La bohème, and Tosca. She has also directed revivals of Madama Butterfly for Opera Queensland, Grand Théâtre de Genève, and Houston Grand Opera. As a former member of the Metropolitan Opera’s directing staff, she helmed revivals of Don Giovanni, Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci, and L’elisir d’amore.
Invested in the dramatic training for singers, she has twice directed the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s RisingStars concert featuring its Ryan Opera Center and has collaborated with those singers in individual dramatic coaching. She has given masterclasses and dramatic coaching at the National Opera Studio in London, Houston Grand Opera Studio and Young Artists Vocal Academy, Wolf Trap Opera, Baylor University, the University of Wisconsin, Lawrence University, and the University of Texas and has been a faculty member of the Scuola di Belcanto in Urbania, Italy. She has directed scenes programs for Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera Studio, Wolf Trap Opera Studio, and Rice University.
She holds degrees from Lawrence University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and aCertificate in Cultural Management from the University of Vienna. She is a citizen of the United States and Germany and makes her home in London.
Gyula Orendt | baritone
Hungarian-Romanian baritone Gyula Orendt was born in Transylvania and studied at the University of Brașov and the Franz Liszt Conservatory, Budapest. Already as a student he performed the title role of Handel’s oratorio Saul. He started his career as a member of the Vienna Volksoper (2010–11) before becoming a member of the Opera Studio of Berlin State Opera (2011–13), and a member of the Berlin State Opera in 2013, where his roles include Papageno (Die Zauberflöte), Conte (Nozze di Figaro), Guglielmo (Cosi fan tutte), Figaro (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Carolus (Emma und Eginhard) under René Jacobs, and Thésée (Hippolyte et Aricie) with Simon Rattle, the title role in Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Belcore (L’elisir d’amore), Zurga (Les Pêcheurs de perles) with Daniel Barenboim, Schaunard (La bohème) and Harlequin (Ariadne auf Naxos).
Engagements elsewhere: Roberto/Nardo (La finta giardiniera) for Glyndebourne Festival, Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro) for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Liceu Barcelona, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Glyndebourne Festival with Robin Ticciati, and Hungarian State Opera, Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) for Bavarian State Opera Munich, the Norwegian National Opera Oslo and the Royal Opera House CoventGarden, where he also performed the title role in Orfeo and Gaveston/Stranger (Lessons in Love and Violence, world premiere, 2018), coproduction with Dutch National Opera Amsterdam, Hamburgische Staatsoper, Opéra National de Lyon, and Teatro Real Madrid.
Concert appearances include Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, Des Knaben Wunderhorn with Concerto Budapest, George Benjamin’s Sometime Voices with the SwedishRadio Symphony Orchestra Stockholm as well as the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France Paris,Handel’s Apollo with the Finish Baroque Orchestra Helsinski, and Lied recitals at Hungarian State Opera and Berlin State Opera.
His discography includes Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo under Rene Jacobs for Harmonia Mundi as well as Lessons in Love and Violence for Nimbus on CD and Opus Arte on dvd. Orendt is a triple prizewinner of the Francisco Viñas Competition.
Jonathan Papp | pianist
Jonathan has performed recitals with Carmen Giannattasio, Sir Thomas Allen, Cheryl Barker, Ian Bostridge, Sophie Daneman, Susan Gritton, Katarina Karneus, Christopher Maltman, Amanda Roocroft, Sergei Leiferkus, Marina Poplavskya, Moray Welsh and Catherine Wyn-Rogers, amongst others. Venues have ranged from London’s Wigmore Hall to the Sydney Opera House. He has made radio and television broadcasts here and abroad with such artists as Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. He has worked as both coach and recital partner with Dame Kiri for over seventeen years.
He has given masterclasses at the Royal Opera House and abroad, including Japan and New Zealand. He has been on the staff of the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, for the Royal Opera House, the Walton Foundation in Ischia and for the Tosti Institute in Ortona. In 2004 he co-founded the Georg Solti Accademia inItaly, of which he is Artistic Director, working alongside an expert hand-picked faculty and inviting an impressive range of artists to give masterclasses, including Frederica von Stade, José Carreras, Sir Richard Bonynge and Angela Gheorghiu.
Jonathan trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he won prizes for piano accompaniment, solo playing and chamber music, and was appointed the Hodgson Fellow for piano and a Fellow of the RoyalAcademy of Music. He undertook further postgraduate studies with Bruno Canino in Milan and Geoffrey Parsons in London.
Elena Postumi | pianist
Elena Postumi is an Italian composer, conductor, and pianist. Hailed as “a composer whose contemporary tonal language oscillates between the popular and the avant-garde” (FAZ), she brings together her background in literature, architecture, philosophy, and the phenomenology of music to forge a compositional language that is both conceptually rigorous and sensually immediate. Her work as conductor, coach, and pianist forms an ongoing dialogue with her compositional practice, resulting in a rich and integrated artistic identity.
Her upcoming projects include a new orchestral piece for the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt (Oder), to be premiered in February 2026; conducting Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor at the MývatssveitFestival in Iceland in April 2026; and a 2026 CD release titled Icelandic Contemporary Songs, featuring Postumi both as pianist and composer. She holds current positions as lecturer in orchestration, chamber music and conductor at the Akademie für Tonkunst Darmstadt and, beginning in Fall 2025, as coach and lecturer in Italian diction at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, reflecting her growing international reputation for vocal interpretation and stylistic expertise.
A passionate connoisseur of the human voice, Postumi’s artistic thinking is informed by the phenomenology of music, which she has explored since 2014 under Elizabeth Sombart. This philosophical foundation shapes her approach to composition, performance, and pedagogy.
She has written and premiered numerous vocal, chamber and orchestral works; her Konzert für Violine und Orchester (2019) and Konzert für Flöte und Kammerorchester, Corifeo delle correnti(2021) were bothpremiered in Iceland to enthusiastic acclaim, and her own music-theatre work Becoming Luise Büchner (directed by Lara Yilmaz) was premiered at the Staatstheater Darmstadt in November 2022.
She is an enthusiastic soloist, chamber musician, and song partner, performing internationally with renown. Her dedication to vocal collaboration led her to opera houses in Europa and South America (the Norwegian National Opera in Bergen, National Opera of Iceland, the Teatro Solís in Montevideo, etc.), where sheworked as répétiteur, pianist, and musical assistant, while holding the same position at the Staatstheater Darmstadt from 2020 to 2023.
Educated in Rome, Berlin and Leipzig, Postumi received an interdisciplinary training encompassing composition, song interpretation, conducting, European literature, and architecture. She is a STIBETscholarship alumna and a fellow of Live Music Now, the foundation established by Yehudi Menuhin.
Matthew Rose | bass
Matthew Rose was born in Brighton, UK. He studied at Christ Church College, Canterbury with Sheila Luxon, and at The Curtis Institute of Music with Marlena Malas and Mikael Eliasen. He was a member of the Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera from 2003-2005. He has since performed many roles there, including Pimen, Baron Ochs, Polyphemus, Collatinus, Bottom, Colline, Sarastro, Der Sprecher, Sparafucile, and Masetto, amongst others. He was Artistic Advisor to the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann YAP, and has performed Phillippe II, Claudio, Oroveso, Ashby, Colline, Leporello, Masetto, Frere Laurent, Talbot, Sarastro, Bottom, Raimondo, and The Night Watchman for the Met. At Glyndebourne, where he was awarded the 2006 John Christie Award, he has sung Bottom, Leporello, Nick Shadow, Collatinus and Callistene.
He has also sung at Berlin Staatsoper and Deutsche Oper, Bayerische Staatsoper, Teatro Real, Valencia, Chicago Lyric Opera, Semperoper, Dresden, Opera Philadelphia, Santa Fe Opera, Opera National de Bordeaux, Houston Grand Opera, English National Opera, Grange Park Opera and La scala, Milan.
In concert he has sung with Berlin Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra , The Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Dutch Radio Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of Radio France, Het Concertgebouw Orchestra, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony, Vienna Symphony, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras, Academy of Ancient Music, Arcangelo, and The English Concert amongst others.
He has sung at Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, Georges Enescu, Salzburg, Berlioz, Verbier, Mostly Mozart Festivals and at the BBC Proms. Amongst the conductors he has worked with are Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Antonio Pappano, Daniel Harding, Jakub Hrůša, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Edward Gardner, Jonathan Cohen, Fabio Luisi, James Levine, Corrado Rovaris, Charles Dutoit, Robin Ticciati, Simone Young, Emmanuelle Haïm, Harry Bicket, Richard Hicox, Karina Canellakis, James Gaffigan, Donald Runnicles, Yannick Nezet Seguin, and Vladimir Jurowski.
In recital he has performed at Wigmore Hall, The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Het Concertgebouw, with pianists Anna Tilbrook, Iain Burnside, Julius Drake, Malcolm Martineau, Joseph Middleton, Tom Poster, Vlad Iftinca and Helen Collyer.
With Gary Matthewman he recorded a celebrated Winterreise, which they performed at Wigmore Hall, and he has recorded Schubert’s Schwanengesang with Malcolm Martineau. With Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo he recorded a recital of Arias for Benucci.
He can be found in many DVDs and CDs. As an educator he ran his own course in Urbania, Italy “La Scuola di Belcanto”, has run courses at Britten Pears Arts and has taught at Chautauqua Institution and Royaumont Academy. He has given masterclasses at Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music and The Curtis Institute of Music. He is Artistic Director of Folkestone on Song, bringing song and singing to Folkestone and East Kent UK, and co-director of Spoleto Vocal Arts Workshop.
Kate Royal | soprano
Born in London, Kate Royal studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National OperaStudio. Awards include the 2004 Kathleen Ferrier Award, the 2004 John Christie Award, and the 2007 Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award.
In concert she has appeared with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Sir Simon Rattle (BBC Proms and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden), the Bach Akademie Stuttgart/Helmuth Rilling, at the Edinburgh Festival/Sir Charles Mackerras, the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington)/Rilling, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic /Vassily Petrenko, the Orchestra of La Scala Milan/Myung-Whun Chung, the Los Angeles Philharmonic/Pablo Heras-Casado, the Boston Symphony/Thomas Adès, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra/Alan Gilbert, Cleveland Orchestra/Franz Welser-Möst, Le Concert d’Astree/Emanuelle Haïm, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Robin Ticciati, the Philharmonia/Esa-Pekka Salonen, the BBC Symphony/Jiri Belohlavek, the London Philharmonic/Vladimir Jurowski and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Rotterdam Philharmonic/Nézet-Séguin, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding at theBaltic Sea Festival and the BBC Proms, and both the Berlin Philharmonic and the Bavarian RadioSymphony Orchestra under Rattle. She has appeared in recital throughout Europe and North America.
In opera she has sung Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Micaela (Carmen), Female Chorus (The Rape of Lucretia) and Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) for the Glyndebourne Festival; Pamina for the Baden-Baden Festival with the Berlin Philharmonic and Rattle, the Lucerne Festival with Harding, and the Royal Opera; Countess (Le nozze di Figaro) and Governess (The Turn of the Screw) for Glyndebourne on Tour; Helena (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) for both the Teatro Real, Madrid and the Glyndebourne Festival; Poppea for English National Opera; Miranda (Ades’ The Tempest) for the Royal Opera; Handel’s L’Allegro and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) for the Paris Opera; and Countess Almaviva for the Aix-en-Provence Festival. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Euridice, returning for Micaela.
Kate has recorded Schumann Liederkreis with Graham Johnson for Hyperion and Mahler Symphony No. 4 with the Manchester Camerata. In October 2006 she signed an exclusive contract with EMI Classics for whom her first solo recording was a self titled musical portrait with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Edward Gardner, followed by 20thcentury arias (“Midsummer Night”) with the Orchestra of English National Opera and Gardner, and a song recital disc with Malcolm Martineau (“A Lesson in Love”) and Mahler 2 with Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic.