Elaine McKrill has enjoyed a long and distinguished international career. Initially performing roles by composers such as Mozart and Handel, then Puccini and Verdi and finally moving into the German dramatic repertoire of Wagner and Strauss. Elaine has a thriving teaching practice and is also the Casting Director for Saffron Opera Group, Edinburgh Players Opera Group and others. Having taken part in many competitions herself since the tender age of about 10, Elaine now enjoys adjudicating and encouraging young singers to give of their best.

Anna Loveday is a professional opera, oratorio and recital singer and a choral conductor.  She has performed major mezzo soprano roles such as Carmen, Lady Macbeth, Amneris in Aida, Madam Larina in Eugene Onegin, Mother Goose in Rake’s Progress, Laura in La Gioconda, Klytaemnestra in Elektra and many others including roles in several Britten and Wagner operas with opera companies across England, touring for 5 years with Opera Brava, an outdoor opera company.  This summer she will be playing Eboli in Verdi’s Don Carlo and La Zia Principessa in Puccini’s Suor Angelica.

Anna has sung the mezzo solos in all the major oratorios and in works such as Mahler’s ‘Das Lied von der Erde’ and has performed solo recitals in various venues in London and further afield.

She has conducted several different choirs over the years, but for the last 15 years she has run her own very successful chamber choir the ‘Loveday Singers’, which is based in Woking.  She was previously, Head of Music and Performing Arts in schools and Sixth Form Colleges in Surrey and Sussex, in all of which she established excellent and singing and award winning choirs.

Based in London, Christopher began his musical life as a chorister, cellist and pianist, playing in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and turning to conducting whilst a Choral Scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he gained an MA in Music and Musicology and a MusB in Piano Accompaniment.

As co-founder (with composer Kate Whitley) and principal conductor of the award-winning Multi-Story Orchestra, Chris has conducted its regular performances in a Peckham car park since their inception in 2011, as well as others at the BBC Proms and the Brighton and Aldeburgh Festivals.  Multi-Story received a Royal Philharmonic Society award in 2016 and is currently expanding across the UK, playing in Gloucester, Coventry and Birmingham.

Away from Multi-Story, Chris also works in opera, for Glyndebourne Festival and Tour, Garsington, English Touring Opera and Oper Köln.  He has also worked as assistant conductor for the Philharmonia, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Gürzenich-Orchester and Aurora Orchestra.  He likes to bring contemporary music into his programmes, having conducted many world premieres, including performances for BBC broadcast of works by the winners of the BBC Inspire composers competition.  He has recorded for NMC, and has broadcast with both Multi-Story and Aurora.

Committed to community music making and to encouraging young musicians by working with local schools, Chris is also Principal Conductor of the Blackheath Halls Symphony Orchestra, Finchley Symphony Orchestra and the Ernest Read Symphony Orchestra.

Rachel is a graduate of St. Peter’s College, Oxford and the Royal Academy of Music.

She freelances with many of the UKs leading orchestras including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

She also plays a nineteenth century Erard harp, most recently with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique.  Rachel has performed with the English rock band Procol Harum and for Quincy Jones’ 85th birthday concert at the O2 Arena.

Rachel is also an active chamber musician, appearing at festivals and music clubs across the UK.

She has recorded with New College and Christ Church Cathedral Choirs, Oxford and has broadcast live on Classic FM from Buckingham Palace with Her Majesty’s Choir of the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace.  Other film and session work includes playing on Howard Goodall’s album Inspired, ITV’s Sound of Music ‘Live’, appearing on screen in Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation and on Google’s ‘Inside Abbey Road’ virtual online tour.

Rachel teaches harp at Berkhamsted School, City Junior School and the Junior Department of the Royal Academy of Music and coaches for the National Children’s Orchestra. In 2018 she was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. She also co-founded the Dunster Festival, a chamber music festival which takes place in May each year alongside education projects with local schools.

Gary Ryan FRCM, GRSM Hons, LGSM Hons, LRAM, Hon ARAM

The British guitarist Gary Ryan made his London recital debut for the Park Lane Group Young Artists Series on London’s South Bank in 1994 and has since pursued a highly varied career as a performer, composer, teacher and examiner.

Gary studied as a junior at the Guildhall School of Music, later winning a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music in 1987. In 1991 he graduated with first class honours and many awards including the Julian Bream Prize and the John Mundy String Prize and was made an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 1997.

In 2013 he became the first guitarist since John Williams in 1983 to be awarded a Fellowship of the Royal College of Music, where he has been Assistant Head of Strings since 2009.

He is also well known for his many guitar compositions, arrangements and examination pieces, which include his acclaimed solo work Benga Beat, Play Piazzolla for Boosey & Hawkes, Scenes from the Wild West for Camden Music London and Guitar Star for the ABRSM.

In 2016 Gary Ryan was invited by John Williams to form 6 Hands, a collaborative guitar trio with the jazz guitarist John Etheridge which has toured the UK extensively, including performances at Kings Place, Bridgewater Hall, Snape Maltings and St. George’s Bristol.

www.garyryan.co.uk

David Brodowski came to London in 2002 to study Violin Performance with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

In 2005 he founded the Brodowski Quartet of which he was the leader for almost 10 years.  During that time they won several international Chamber Music Competitions including the Royal Overseas League and the Val Tidone International Chamber Music Competition.  The quartet regularly performed in the Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, the Anvil Concert Hall and many other major Concert venues in the UK and abroad.  A huge part of the quartets engagements were educational outreach programmes and residencies amongst others Bristol University and The Anvil Concert Hall.

David has taught violin and chamber music at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance for the last 15 years.

Apart from loving music, David enjoys being a dad, cooking, artisanal bread baking and cycling.

Mark Armstrong

Ian Mitchell studied clarinet with John Maclean (principal clarinet with the Carl Rosa Opera Company), and with Alan Hacker at the Royal Academy of Music. After leaving he read Music at Goldsmiths College, London University. He has had many pieces written for him and has championed the use of the bass clarinet in solo and chamber music. His recording of solo bass clarinet music (the first by a British artist) released on Black Box was awarded the top accolade in BBC Music Magazine. He has toured his own realisation of Stockhausen’s Little Harlequin for dancing clarinettist. There have been solo appearances throughout Europe, the Middle East, Australia, the USA, Taiwan, Japan and North Korea (the first – and only – British clarinettist to appear there!). His CD of American clarinet music was awarded second prize in the USA’s ‘The American Prize’. Ian Mitchell has appeared with the London Sinfonietta, The Monteverdi Orchestra, Fires of London, AMM, Dreamtiger, Michael Nyman Band, Gavin Bryars Ensemble, Critical Band and others. He is director of the chamber ensemble Gemini, a member of the Albanian folk band Liria and is a regular improviser, particularly with clarinettist and artist Dave Ryan in the MitchellRyan Duo. He was a lecturer at the University of Exeter 1996-2007, and Head of Wind, Brass & Percussion at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance from 2007-2014. He was appointed ARAM in 1995, HonTCL in 2006 and FTL in 2015 for services to Music.

Sam Barton (he/him) is a conductor, pianist, tenor and double bassist based in Brighton. Sam began his professional career in Canada, studying conducting with Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt at the University of Toronto (2010-12). Sam continued his career in Toronto until 2015 working with the Cathedral Choir of St. James, Toronto Estonia Choir, and That Choir.

Sam returned to the UK in 2015. In addition to his role at Worthing Choral Society, is the Musical Director of Resound Male Voices in Brighton, Ashdown Singers in Uckfield, and West Norwood Community Choir in London.  He was the Assistant MD of Brighton Festival Youth Choir from 2017-2020.

Sam’s credits as a tenor soloist include Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn’s Creation, and Puccini’s Messe di Gloria with Worthing Choral Society; and Bach’s Magnificat with Laughton Village Choir in East Sussex. He has also performed numerous opera roles in workshops including Mime in Wagner’s Das Rheinghold, Hot Biscuit Slim in Britten’s Paul Bunyan, Beppe in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Der Junge Diener in Strauss’ Elektra, and Harry in Puccini’s Fanciulla del West.

Alisdair Hogarth is a versatile pianist combining a robust technique with a fresh, contemporary approach.  He is a leading collaborative pianist and teacher specialising in post-injury piano technique, and is renowned for his cross-genre collaborations with other artists, including poets, jazz pianists and composers.  He made his concerto debut in 1996 as soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Recent collaborations have included performances with Jason Rebello and Claire Booth at Snape Maltings and St. John’s Smith Square, a Wigmore Hall recital with Sir Stephen Hough and a live BBC Radio 3 recital with Rob Murray.

Committed to song-accompaniment, Hogarth is the Director and pianist of The Prince Consort.  They made their Wigmore Hall debut in 2009 in which they were joined by Graham Johnson.  Their first recording for Linn, Ned Rorem – On an echoing road –, was Gramophone Editor’s Choice in addition to being named ‘Outstanding’ in International Record Review.  The Prince Consort are Associate Artists of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama’s Vocal Department.  Hogarth is a Steinway Artist.