CLASSICAL OPERA - Key Persons
Ashley Riches studied at King's College, Cambridge and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. From 2012 to 2014 he was a Jette Parker Young Artist at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where his roles included Salieri in Rimsky Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri, Michael in the world première of Eichbert's Glare, and Baron Douphol (La traviata). In 2017 he appeared with The Mozartists in ‘1767 - A Retrospective' at Wigmore Hall, which was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, and he recently made his début with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir John Eliot Gardiner as Creon in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex. He has also appeared as the Ferryman in Curlew River with the Britten Sinfonia at the new Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the title role in Don Giovanni for Opera Holland Park. He is currently a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist.
Ben Johnson has appeared with The Mozartists as Aceste (Ascanio in Alba) and in concerts at King's Place and Milton Court. In 2008 he won First Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier awards, and he was an English National Opera Harewood Artist and a Wigmore Hall Emerging Talent. Operatic engagements have included Novice (Billy Budd) for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Nemorino (The Elixir of Love) for ENO, Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) for Opéra National de Bordeaux, Grimoaldo (Rodelinda) for Opéra de Baugé, the title role in Albert Herring for British Youth Opera, Tom Rakewell (The Rake's Progress) at the RCM, and Tonik (Smetana's The Two Widows) for Scottish Opera. He is the Founder and Chief Conductor of the Southrepps Sinfonia as well as joint Artistic Director of the Southrepps Classical Music Festival. He is professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Elspeth Marrow completed her studies at the Royal College of Music in 2017. In 2012 she graduated from Royal Holloway, where she was awarded the Driver Prize for Excellence in Performance and the Dame Felicity Lott Bursary. Operatic roles include Mrs Grose (The Turn of the Screw) for Euphonia Opera, Polinesso (Ariodante) with London Handel Festival & RCM, Florence Pike (Albert Herring) with RCM, Hansel (Hansel and Gretel) and Madame de la Haltière (Cendrillon) for Opera Holloway, and Kate Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly) for Co-Opera Co. She won third prize in the Brooks-van der Pump English Song Competition and reached the finals of the Concerto Competition and the Contemporary Competition at the Royal College of Music as well as the Dean and Chadlington Competition. She made her début with The Mozartists (then Classical Opera) as Prudentia in Applausus.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board of Trustees
Helen Sherman studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music, where she was the first student to receive the International Artists Diploma in opera. As an Associate Artist with The Mozartists, Helen has sung the role of Sesto in Mozart's La clemenza di Tito and performed in our Mozart in London festival at Milton Court. In 2011, Helen represented Australia at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition and in 2012 she was awarded Australian Music Association prizes at the Royal Overseas League Music competition in London. Previous operatic roles include Aurelio (L'assedio di Calais) and Dorabella (Così fan tutte) for English Touring Opera, Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) for Mid Wales Opera, Suzuki (Madama Butterfly) and Governess (The Queen of Spades) for Grange Park Opera.
Job Titles:
- Artistic Director
- Director
British baritone James Newby was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2018-2020. He was the winner of the 2016 Kathleen Ferrier Award, and that same year he was the recipient of the Wigmore Hall/Independent Opera Voice Fellowship. In 2015 was awarded the Richard Tauber Prize (for best interpretation of a Schubert Lied) and overall Third Prize at the Wigmore Hall/Kohn International Song Competition. In the 2016/17 season he sang the role of Mercurio in La Calisto with La Nuova Musica and David Bates, and made his BBC Proms début in 2016 singing in Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music conducted by Sakari Oramo. He was a 2017 Jerwood Young Artist at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and appeared in La Traviata, Hamlet, La Clemenza di Tito and the role of the notary in Don Pasquale during the 2017 Festival, for which he won the prestigious John Christie Award. He was awarded the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's Rising Stars prize for 2017-2019. Recent engagements with the orchestra include ‘Christus' in the world premiere of Sally Beamish's The Judas Passion, and various Bach Cantatas as part of the OAE's ‘Bach, the Universe and Everything' series at Kings Place, London. In 18/19 he sings the role of Apollo in Handel's Apollo e Dafne under Jonathan Cohen, Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem under Marin Alsop, and St Matthew Passion under John Butt.
Katy Bircher is established as an early flutes specialist and has worked with most UK-based early music groups in repertoire ranging from Dowland to Wagner. As a soloist she has played concertos with the Dunedin Consort, the Academy of Ancient Music, La Serenissima, and Concerto Copenhagen, appearing in concerts across Europe, the United States and the Far East. Following her Gramophone Award-winning recording of Vivaldi concertos, ‘The French Connection', with La Serenissima, she was selected to give the first performance and recording of the newly discovered ‘Il Gran Mogul' concerto by Vivaldi (‘The French Connection' 2, Avie). She has contributed to many critically acclaimed orchestral recordings as principal flute, notably Haydn's The Creation with the Gabrieli Consort and Players, Bach's Mass in B minor with Concerto Copenhagen and St John Passion with the Dunedin Consort. She teaches Baroque flute at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Centre for Early Music Performance and Research at Birmingham University, and has given masterclasses in the UK and abroad.
Australian soprano Kiandra Howarth was a member of the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden from 2013-15. Her roles there included Echo (Ariadne auf Naxos), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Giannetta and Adina (L'elisir d'amore), Juliette (Roméo et Juliette), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Gilda (Rigoletto), Mimi (La bohème), Nanetta (Falstaff), Ilia (Idomeneo), and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte). Having graduated with a Bachelor of Music from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music in 2010, she went on to study on the Opera Queensland Young Artist Programme and subsequently joined the company at Opera Australia. She was awarded the ‘Culturarte Prize' in the 23rd Edition of Plácido Domingo's Operalia. While studying at the Mozarteum Institute in Salzburg, she performed the role of La Contessa (Le nozze di Figaro) in a new production directed by the late Eike Gramss. She was subsequently invited to participate in the 2013 Salzburg Festival Young Singer's Project, performing der Friedensbote (Rienzi) and Una voce dal cielo (Don Carlos) conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano. In December 2015 she made her house role début at The tre an der Wien performing the role of First Niece in a new production of Peter Grimes. Recent performances include her house role début with Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) at Theater Basel, 2nd flower maiden in Parsifal at the Baden Baden Festival, Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, and Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) for The Grange Festival.
Kitty Whately trained at Chetham's School of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Royal College of Music International Opera School. She was the winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award 2011 and the 59 th Royal Overseas League Award in the same year. Kitty made her début with The Mozartists in 2010 singing the role of Edith in Arne's Alfred at Kings Place, and has recently performed with the company in ‘1771 - A Retrospective'. Other operatic roles include Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro) as part of the prestigious Verbier Festival Academy, and Nancy (Albert Herring) with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. She was a BBC New Generation Artist between 2013-15, during which time she made her début album ‘This Other Eden' featuring English poetry and song, recorded Ravel's Shéhérazade with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, songs from Rogers and Hammerstein, Jerome Kern and Cole Porter with the BBC Concert Orchestra, featured in a Chamber Music Prom singing the music of Stephen Sondheim, and as Nancy in Albert Herring with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. On the concert platform she has sung Chansons d'Auvergne and Duruflé's Requiem with the RPO, Dream of Gerontius at St John's Smith Square, Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall and made her BBC Proms début in Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' Suite from Act II of Caroline Mathilde.
Louise Alder studied at the Royal College of Music International Opera School, where she was the inaugural Kiri Te Kanawa Scholar. She won the Young Singer Award at the 2017 International Opera Awards and the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at the 2017 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. She also won the 2015 inaugural Young British Soloists' Competition, is the recipient of Glyndebourne's 2014 John Christie Award and took 2 nd Prize in the 2013 Kathleen Ferrier Competition. She is an Associate Artist with The Mozartists, and has appeared with the company in Handel's Messiah at Middle Temple Hall and in concert at Wigmore Hall and St John's Smith Square. She is a member of the Frankfurt Opera Ensemble, where her roles have included Atalanta in a new production of Xerxes, Gilda (Rigoletto), Sophie (Werther) and Despina (Così fan tutte). Other opera roles have included Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier) for Welsh National Opera, Lucia (The Rape of Lucretia) and Zerlina (Don Giovanni) for Glyndebourne, Ilia (Idomeneo) for Garsington Opera, Euridice in Luigi Rossi's Orpheus for the Royal Opera, Rapunzel (Into the Woods) for the Thé tre du Ch telet and Gilda, Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel) and the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen for Oper Frankfurt. In 2017 she sang the role of Marzelline in Fidelio at the BBC Proms.
Job Titles:
- Outreach & Development Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Finance
- Operations Manager
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Trustees
Job Titles:
- Communications & Projects Coordinator