Paul Arden-Griffith

Paul Arden-GriffithPaul Arden-Griffith studeerde aan het Royal College of Music in Manchester, Engeland, waar hij afstudeerde in zowel zang als piano. Hij zong in meer dan 60 operarollen o.a. bij de Royal Opera, Covent Garden en English National Opera.

Hij creëerde de rol van Monsieur Reyer in de originele London cast van Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, waarin hij deze zong in meer dan 1000 voorstellingen. In dezelfde voorstelling zong hij vele malen Monsieur Piangi. Naast opera en muziektheater is Paul vaak te horen in oratorium, concert, recital en op de radio. In de Duitse productie van Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard zong hij Sheldrake.

Solo concerten brachten hem over de hele wereld. Hij presenteerde zijn eigen showprogramma en verscheen in productieshows en klassieke concerten aan boord van cruiseschepen zoals de Oriana van P&O en de Queen Mary 2 van Cunard Line.

Paul is zangdocent en een graag geziene gastdocent in 'performance technique'. Hij is beschermheer van de Barezzi Theatre School en het Theatre of the Gifted Youth.

 

 

 

Michael Chance - Countertenor


MichaelCMichael Chance has established a worldwide reputation as one of the foremost exponents of the male alto voice in all areas of the classical repertoire, and is in equal demand as an opera, concert and recording artist.
"Despite the abundance of younger star countertenors these days, none of them yet match Chance's intelligent delivery and supreme ability to get inside the English language." The Guardian, 15 October 2002

His vocal training with Rupert Bruce Lockhart followed an English degree at King's College, Cambridge where he was also a choral scholar. His appearances in oratorio and recital have taken him to concert halls all over the world including Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, Musikverein, Neue Gewandhaus and Berlin's Philharmonie. He has given recitals in Frankfurt, Vienna, Amsterdam, Israel, New York and London's Wigmore Hall with a variety of programmes, ranging from Elizabethan lute songs to new works commissioned for him.

Michael Chance's list of recordings is numerous and widespread. He received a Grammy award for his participation in Handel's Semele for Deutsche Grammophon with John Nelson and Kathleen Battle. He has recorded frequently with John Eliot Gardiner.

 

His belief in extending the counter-tenor repertoire has prompted new work to be composed for him by Richard Rodney Bennett, Alexander Goehr, Tan Dun, Anthony Powers, John Tavener, and Elvis Costello - amongst others. He sings regularly with the viol consort Fretwork, and recently toured with them to Japan and the United States.
His television appearances include A Night at the Chinese Opera, Death in Venice, The Fairy Queen, the three Monteverdi operas with Netherlands Opera, Poppea with Welsh National Opera, Messiah in Dublin with Sir Neville Marriner, and in the Autumn 1999 he was featured by the South Bank Show.
Recent engagements have included the St. John Passion at the Salzburg Easter Festival with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, and with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the title role of Solomon with the Mozarteum Orchester and Ivor Bolton in Salzburg and Tafelmusik in Toronto, and the title role in Rinaldo for Opera Australia.

 

Richard Jackson

Richard Jackson

After study at King's College, Cambridge, and the Guildhall School in London, Richard sang a variety of roles at ENO, Glyndebourne, Opera North, and the Monnaie in Brussels. He sang in Jonathan Miller's staging of the St Matthew Passion, for TV and CD.

He was a founder-member and frequent performer in Graham Johnson's group The Songmakers' Almanac. He also specialises in contemporary music, with notable performances for Almeida Opera, and at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Appearances in Ireland have included concerts with the New Irish Chamber Orchestra, and premieres of operas by Kevin O'Connell (for OTC) and Gerald Barry (at the Gate theatre).

He now teaches in London - at the Guildhall and the Royal Academy of Music - and leads the Singers' Workshop at Morley College. He has given Master Classes in France and Australia, and served on the jury of the Kathleen Ferrier competition

 

 

 

Linda Ormiston

Linda OrmistonLinda Ormiston was born in Motherwell, Scotland and is a graduate in Mathematics and Music from Glasgow University. She continued her studies at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and at the London Opera Centre and after a season with English Opera for All, she joined Scottish Opera, for whom she sang more than 30 roles as a contract principal.

She is one of Britain's most versatile artists - equally at home in opera or cabaret and she has sung with most of the main British Opera Companies.

Further afield, performances have taken her to Brussels, Monte Carlo, Marseilles, Lyon, Nantes, Angers, Lausanne, Frankfurt, Vancouver, Tokyo, Osaka and New York. She has appeared at the major International Music Festivals - Aix en Provence, Salzburg, Buxton, Como, St. Magnus, Covent Garden and for a record seven successive years in cabaret at the Edinburgh International Festival with Donald Maxwell as "The Music Box".

 

Recent appearances have included Welsh National Opera's Centenary production of The Merry Widow with Lesley Garrett, broadcast on BBC 2; guest soloist with Manchester's Halle Orchestra; Katisha in The Mikado in Glasgow and opera performances in France - The Rake's Progress and The Makropoulos Case in Nantes/Angers and Jenufa in Marseilles.

 

This summer, she will be appearing at 2011 Salzburg Festival in a new production of The Makropulos Case, conducted by Esa Pekka Salonen. She is a voice tutor on The Music Theatre Course at The Dance School of Scotland and on the Music Theatre Department of the RSAMD. She received an honorary doctorate of Music in 1999 from St. Andrews University and in 2001 was awarded an OBE for services to Opera.

 

Jamie MacDougall

Jamie

Born in Glasgow, Jamie MacDougall has established himself as one of the country's most versatile singers and performers. For the past decade Jamie has been the nation's voice of classical music for BBC Radio Scotland.
Jamie says 'I lead a charmed life in many ways. Doing what I've always dreamed of doing which is singing to people and get to meet some of the biggest names in the classical music world. If you had asked my 10 years ago, that I'd interview the likes of Elmer Bernstein, Valery Gergiev, Rene Fleming, Maxim Vengarov and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, then I wouldn't have believed you.

2003 saw Jamie's move to television when he presented and sang at the BBC Proms in the Park from Glasgow as part of the Last Night of the Proms festivities.
2009 saw the release of the complete Haydn Folk Song arrangements on Brilliant Classics. This 20 CD collection of 429 songs was recorded over 5 years with the Haydn Trio Eisenstadt and Scottish soprano Lorna Anderson. During the year long celebration of Haydn's 200th anniversary, Jamie performed these songs in Milan, New York, Washington DC, Vienna, London, Edinburgh and Glasgow as well as at numerous European festivals.

Jamie's recent appearances include the Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Choral Society, and song recitals in Scotland with Malcolm Martineau and Fali Pavri. He appears regularly with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and will once again front BBC's Christmas Classics and Christmas at the Movies at the City Halls in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Ayr.
Jamie's extensive discography of over 45 titles, covers baroque and classical, German, Scottish and English song as well as 20th century music.

http://jamiemacdougall.bandzoogle.com/fr_home.cfm

 

TOM HAWKES - DIRECTOR

Tom HawkesTom Hawkes was born in London, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music. Appointments include Artistic Director of Phoenix Opera, Director of Morley Opera and Director of Productions for Lyric Theatre Singapore. He is currently Director of Productions for Castleward Opera where his productions include “L’Etoile”, “Martha”, “Lucia di Lammermoor”, “La Rondine”, “Rigoletto”, and “ La Boheme”.
(Both nominated for best production, Irish Theatre Awards 2005/2006) and this season “Un Ballo in Mascera.

As Director of Productions of the Handel Opera Society he directed new productions of “Esther”, “Ezio”, “Hercules”, “Partenope”,  “Radamisto”, “Rodrigo”,  and “Xerxes” at Sadler’s Wells Theatre.
For Sadler’s Wells Theatre itself, he directed the British Premiere of Alan Bush’s “Wat Tyler”, and for New Sadler’s  Wells Opera, “Hansel and Gretel”, “Die Czárdásfurstin” and “Der Graf Von Luxemburg”.
For the English National Opera at the London Coliseum
he directed five productions including “Un Ballo in Maschera”,
La Gazza Ladra” and “La Vie Parisisnne”.

His productions for The English Bach Festival have been seen
In the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and in Paris,
Monte Carlo and Versailles, and at festivals in Athens, Madrid,
Granada, Peralada, Bologna, Siena, Viterbo, Vichy and Dijon
Productions for the company include “Castor et Pollux”, “Platée”,  Gluck’s “Alceste” and “Orphée”, Handel’s  “Alceste”, “Oreste”, “Riccardo Primo”, “Teseo”, Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” and Mozart’s “Mitridate” and “Idomeneo”.

He has directed productions all over the world including Austria
Belgium, Yugoslavia, the Republic of Ireland, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Trinidad. In September 2002 he directed Cavalli’s “Pompeo Magno” for the Varazdin Baroque Festival winning the coveted Ivan Lukačić prize.

For Opera Holland Park he has directed “Iris”, “L’Arlesiana”, “Le Nozze di Figaro”, “Cosi fan tutte”, “Un Ballo in Maschera”, “La Traviata”, “Adriana Lecouvreur”, “Werther”, “Die Fledermaus”, “Eugene Onegin”, “The Merry Widow.” and this season “Lakmé.”

(Tom Hawkes, Hon. MA, GSMD, ARAM, LRAM, RAM Dip.Ed.)

 

JACQUIE CRAGO - ACTOR, DIRECTOR AND VOICE/TEXT/ACTING COACH

Tom HawkesJacquie’s passions as Voice Coach, Actor and Director are text and how to achieve detailed and truthful communication through connection with that text. Over many years of working with actors and musical theatre and opera singers I have become aware that performances frequently suffer from physical ’tightness’ and inflexibility - often, with singers, the result of an undue concern about ’hitting the right note’. Of course, musical accuracy is an essential part of the job but it cannot be the only point of focus if the story is to be told in full - on the concert platform as well as in a full blown production. My work helps performers to discover and internalise the emotional details of text, to connect those discoveries with the structure of the music and to communicate the performance freely through the released physical action of the voice. When word and music are fully realised through the performer then there is inspiration. Jacquie started in 1968 as a voice and speech lecturer, moving onto freelance voice and dialect coaching along with professional acting and directing. In 1996 she became the voice co-ordinator for the Birmingham School of Acting, and then Head of Voice for Oxford School of Drama in 1997. She then worked with the Voice and Text department for the Royal Shakespeare Company before moving into her current role in 2005. Jacquie teaches voice and acting workshops for the London International School of Performing Arts, RSC, Interact, Bristol and Gloucester Universities, Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham and RSAMD.