JAMES ATKINSON
baritone

Spring Diary: Friday 20 September 2024

British baritone James Atkinson is a graduate of the Royal College of Music Opera Studio. From September 2023, James joined the BBC New Generation Artist scheme in conjunction with Radio 3. He has won many awards, his most recent being the Royal Over-Seas League Singers’ Prize (2022).

After a hugely successful debut singing Masetto/Don Giovanni for Welsh National Opera in 2022, James returns this season for Guglielmo/Così fan tutte. He also makes his debut in Boston with the Handel & Haydn Society singing Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem conducted by James Burton. Further debuts include Fauré’s Requiem conducted by Jonathan Nott with the Orchèstre de la Suisse Romande, and concerts with the Oxford Philharmonic for both Handel’s Messiah and Mozart’s Requiem. He is in high demand as a recitalist and returns to the Oxford International Song Festival. 

Further highlights from 22/23 included several debuts: the Montreal Symphony Orchestra for Haydn’s Creation (Bernard Labadie) and as Steuermann at the Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg in the revival of Festival d'Aix-en-Provence’s production of Tristan und Isolde.  He sang Belcore in the Wild Arts tour of Elisir d’Amore and returned to the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra for Orest/Elektra (Nott). His recital with Simon Lepper at the NI Opera Festival of Voice was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.  

ARCHIE BONHAM
piano

Shipston Song Rising Star 2024

Archie Bonham is a British pianist studying for an Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music with Simon Lepper, Danny Driver, and Roger Vignoles. He is a member of the Wigmore Hall French Song Exchange 2024 mentored by Dame Felicity Lott, François Le Roux, and Seb Wybrew. In 2023 he won the pianist prize at the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards at Wigmore Hall, the Lies Askonas Vocal Awards, and Brooks van der Pump English Song Competition at the RCM. He was a finalist in the Ferrier Awards 2023, and this summer he will be a New Horizons Fellow in Vocal Collaborative Piano at the Aspen Music Festival and School in Colorado, USA.

Away from vocal collaborations, he founded a piano trio at the RCM in 2021 and has recently enjoyed concerto performances of Rachmaninov and Grieg, as well as chamber performances for the All Saints Hertford concert series, and the North Norfolk Music Festival. From September 2024 he will be the Adami Award for Collaborative Piano Fellow at the Royal College of Music in London, based in the strings faculty. He is a Britten Pears Young Artist 2024/25, focusing on French song with Véronique Gens and Susan Manoff. His studies at the RCM are funded generously by the Needley Family Scholarship and the Viola Tunnard Trust.

BETHANY HORAK-HALLETT
mezzo soprano

How do I find you? Saturday 21 September 2024

British mezzo-soprano Bethany Horak-Hallett read Music at Leeds University gaining a Masters in Music Performance. She completed her training at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. Bethany was a Rising Star of the Enlightenment and a Samling Artist. She was a finalist in the 2020 Cesti Competition at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music and won Second Prize in the 2021 International Handel Singing Competition.

Opera engagements have included Dorabella Così fan Tutte for Garsington Opera, Kitchen Boy Rusalka and Žena Katya Kabanova for Glyndebourne; Lady Psyche  Princess Ida with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and most recently Camila in Thomas Adès The Exterminating Angel for Opéra de Paris. On the concert platform Bethany has appeared with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment singing Bach Cantatas and Galatea in Handel Aci, Galatea e Polifemo directed by Steven Devine; the St John Passion with Mark Padmore and Haydn Nelson Mass with John Butt. She joined the Royal Northern Sinfonia / Dinis Sousa as soloist for Bach Cantata 199 and made her BBC Proms début with the Monteverdi Choir / Sir John Eliot Gardiner singing Handel Dixit Dominus (broadcast on BBC TV and Radio) and has sung Messiah with The Dunedin Consort / John Butt. She has given recitals at the London Handel Festival, for Garsington Opera, the University of Leeds and the Oxford International Song Festival. Her future engagements include Cherubino Le Nozze di Figaro with Garsington Opera. 

RUBY HUGHES
soprano

L’invitation au voyage: Sunday 22 September 2024

Former BBC New Generation Artist, winner of both First Prize and Audience Prize at London's 2009 Handel Singing Competition, Ruby also holds a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and was shortlisted for a 2014 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award.

 Through her blossoming catalogue of recordings and lovingly curated performances, she has become known for her interpretations of the music of the baroque and 20th and 21st Century.

Given her background and her wide range of interests, it comes as no surprise that Ruby is a passionate programmer, curator and collaborator. She has forged particularly close relationships with artists such as Laurence Cummings, Joseph Middleton, Jonas Nordberg, Natalie Clein and Julius Drake, Huw Watkins, United Strings of Europe, The Manchester Collective and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. This season 23/24 she was invited to curate and perform in a series of three concerts for BBC Northern Ireland as well as to present Inside Music for BBC Radio 3.

Ruby's captivating capacity for communication and connection with audiences has lead to invitations to perform at Wigmore Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Konzerthaus and Musikverrein, Palais Garnier and Philharmonie de Paris and in the US at both the Frick Collection and Carnegie Hall, New York. Festival appearances have included the BBC Proms, Cheltenham, Edinburgh International, Newbury, Aldeburgh, Aix en Provence, Gent Festival OdeGand, Göttingen, Marlboro and Spitalfields.

She has worked with a host of conductors including Rinaldo Allesandrini, Ivor Bolton, Laurence Cummings, Thierry Fischer, Pablo Heras Casado, Jun Markl, Juanjo Mena, Gianandrea Noseda, Marc Minkowski, Hervé Niquet, Thomas Søndergård, John Storgårds, and Osmo Vänskä.



On the opera stage Ruby has sung productions for Theater an der Wein (Roggiero in Rossini's Tancredi, and Fortuna in L’Incoronazione di Poppea), Aix-en-Provence Festival (Euridice L'Orfeo), Opéra de Toulon (Rose Maurrant Street Scene) and Potsdamer Winteroper (title role, Theodora) and in the UK has performed major roles with English National Opera, Garsington Opera and for Scottish Opera.

Ruby Hughes replaces an indisposed Carolyn Sampson OBE on Sunday 22nd September

EYRA NORMAN
soprano

Shipston Song Rising Star 2024

Malaysian-Born British Soprano, Eyra Norman BMus (Hons), DipABRSM, is a John Lewis Partnership Scholar currently completing her Master of Performance at the Royal College of Music, London, where she was previously a Douglas and Hilda Simmonds Scholar during her Bachelor of Music (Hons). Eyra is also a Drake Calleja Trust Scholar for 2023-2024. Having achieved a first in her bachelor’s degree with the guidance of Veronica Veysey Campbell, Eyra now continues to further her musical development under the tutelage of Russell Smythe and Bryan Evans. Having reached the finals of the RCM Lies Askonas competition in 2022, the following year she won the second prize.

Eyra made her national debut as Belinda in Dido and Aeneas with the English National Opera and the Unicorn Theatre in 2019. Eyra, “whose sweet soprano tone and natural presence promise much” (Erica Jeal, The Guardian 2019), made her cover debut at the Royal Opera House, as the soprano soloist in Fauré’s Requiem.

Eyra has performed as a soloist in concerts at the Royal Festival Hall (Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music alongside the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner), Wigmore Hall, the Elgar Room (Royal Albert Hall), the Dora Stoutzker Hall in Wales and St. John’s Cathedral in Hong Kong, where she notably performed for the Prince of Liechtenstein. Eyra also made her Coliseum debut in 2022, with the English National Opera Chorus.

ELLEN PEARSON
mezzo soprano

Shipston Song Rising Star 2024

Ellen Pearson is a mezzo-soprano in the final year of her Master's of Music at the Royal College of Music. An Ian-Evans Lombe scholar, Ellen studies with Alison Wells and Sebastian Wybrew. Ellen is also financially supported by the Countess of Munster Trust and the Josephine Baker Trust. Ellen is very excited to be a Shipston Song Rising Star (2024) as well as an Oxford International Song Young Artist (2024/2025). 

Ellen is delighted to be an Opera Holland Park Young Artist for their 2023-24 Season and is excited to be performing the role of Rosina in the Opera Holland Park Young Artist production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia by Rossini. Ellen recently performed the role of Donna Ximena in the Royal College of Music’s Autumn 2023 production of Gazzaniga’s Don Giovanni. In August 2023 Ellen made her role debut of Dorabella in Berlin Opera Academy’s production of Cosí fan Tutte. 

A keen performer of art song, Ellen recently won the Charles Wood International Song Competition. Recent achievements also include Highly Commended in the RCM Lieder Competition, Highly Commended in the RCM Brooks van der Pump English Song Competition as well as First Prize in the AESS Dorothy Richardson Prize for English Song. She has also performed in masterclasses with internationally renowned artists such as Thomas Allen, Michael Chance and Susan Manoff.

REDMOND SANDERS
baritone

Shipston Song Rising Star 2024

Baritone Redmond Sanders studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama as a postgraduate student under the tutelage of Susan Waters. He is generously supported by the Robert Easton scholarship and is proud to be a Samling Artist.

Undergraduate winner of the Brooks Van der Pump competition at the Royal College of Music, previous roles include 2nd Armed Man in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, John Styx in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld and Il Boscaiuolo from Respighi’s La Bella Dormente nel Bosco. In the 2022 season, Redmond joined Grange Park Opera for chorus of Bryn Terfel’s Der Fliegende Holländer. He is delighted to join Grange Park Opera again this summer, for their productions of Aleko, and Daughter of the Regiment where he will perform the role of Corporal.

Notable performances include singing the baritone solo from Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony at the Royal College of Music and later in St Asaph’s Cathedral in Wales, along with the bass solo Dvořak Stabat Mater, Dvořak Requiem, Mozart Requiem, and Handel Messiah. Redmond looks forward to the Verbier Festival later this summer where he will be singing the role of Antonio from Le Nozze di Figaro and be a member of the Atelier Lyrique Song Academy. In September he will be joining the Opera Studio at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.