© Kaupo Kikkas

Described by The Daily Telegraph as ‘in a class of his own’ James Baillieu is one of the leading song and chamber music pianists of his generation.  He has given solo and chamber recitals throughout the world and collaborates with a wide range of singers and instrumentalists including Benjamin Appl, Jamie Barton, Ian Bostridge, Allan Clayton, Annette Dasch, Lise Davidsen, the Elias and Heath Quartets, Dame Kiri te Kanawa, Adam Walker, and Pretty Yende.  As a soloist, he has appeared with the Ulster Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, and the Wiener Kammersymphonie.

During the 2021-22 season James continues his strong relationship with Wigmore Hall with recitals including performers Benjamin Appl, Florian Boesch, Ema Nikolovska, Christoph Prégardien, and Fatma Said. He is Artist in Residence of the Lied Festival Victoria de los Ángeles where he presents Die schöne Müllerin, Winterreise, and Schwanengesang with Julian Prégardien, Mark Padmore, and Jan Petryka. Also in Barcelona, he joins Benjamin Appl for a fully-staged production of Winterreise at the Gran Teatre del Liceu designed by the renowned painter, sculptor, and engraver Antonio López. North American appearances of the season feature performances at Vancouver Recital Society with trombonist Peter Moore and at Celebrity Series of Boston, The Dallas Opera, and the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts on the campus of Pittsburg State University with Benjamin Appl.

James Baillieu is a frequent guest at many of the world’s most distinguished music centers including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Vancouver Playhouse, Berlin Konzerthaus, Vienna Musikverein,  Barbican Centre, Wiener Konzerthaus, Bozar Brussels, Pierre Boulez Saal, Cologne Philharmonie, and the Laeiszhalle Hamburg.  Festivals include Aix-en-Provence, Verbier, Schleswig-Holstein, Festpillene i Bergen, Edinburgh, Spitalfields, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Bath, City of London and Brighton Festivals.

An innovative programmer, he has curated many song and chamber music festivals including series for the Brighton Festival, Wigmore Hall, BBC Radio 3, Verbier Festival, Bath International Festival, and Perth Concert Hall.

At the invitation of John Gilhooly, James Baillieu has presented his own series at the Wigmore Hall with Adam Walker, Jonathan McGovern, Ailish Tynan, Tara Erraught, Henk Neven, Iestyn Davies, Allan Clayton, and Mark Padmore amongst others.  This series was shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Chamber Music and Song Award for an outstanding contribution to the performance of chamber music and song in the UK.

James Baillieu was prize winner of the Wigmore Hall Song Competition, Das Lied International Song Competition, the Kathleen Ferrier and Richard Tauber Competitions, and was selected for representation by Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) in 2010 and in 2012 received a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and a Geoffrey Parsons Memorial Trust Award.  In 2016 he was shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society Outstanding Young Artist Award.

Recording projects include ‘Heimat’ with Benjamin Appl (Sony Classical), the complete works of CPE Bach for violin and piano with Tamsin Waley-Cohen (Signum Records), and albums on the Chandos, Opus Arte, Champs Hill, Rubicon, and Delphian Record labels as part his critically acclaimed discography.

James Baillieu is a Professor at the Royal Academy of Music, a coach for the Jette Parker Young Artist Program at the Royal Opera House, a course leader for the Samling Foundation, and is head of the Song Program at the Atelier Lyrique of the Verbier Festival Academy.  He also is International Tutor in Piano Accompaniment at the Royal Northern College of Music.  Highly sought after for masterclasses worldwide, recent sessions of learning have brought him to the Aldeburgh Festival, Cleveland Institute of Music, Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Friends of Chamber Music, Portland, Oregon, Vancouver Academy of Music, Canada, and to the University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Janis Kelly studied at the RSAMD, the RCM and with Elisabeth Grummer in Paris. Widely recognized as one of the great singing actresses of her generation, Janis Kelly’s work continues to take her to the World’s leading Opera Houses, ranging from the Operatic and Concert platform, to Hollywood films and Soundtracks, as well as allowing her to teach students at the RCM, where she is delighted to be returning  by invitation to the stage after 34 years!
Janis received worldwide acclaim for her portrayal of Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna, which she performed at the Manchester International Festival (World Premiere), Sadlers Wells, Toronto, Portland, ROH and Madrid and recently recorded for Deutche Gramaphon. Recent and future appearances include Mrs Lovett Sweeney Todd (WNO), Mrs Nixon Nixon in China (Metropolitan Opera), Lady Billows Albert Herring (Los Angeles Opera), Hazel George in the World Premiere of Philip Glass’ The Perfect American (Teatro Real, Madrid and ENO), Mrs Naidoo Satyagraha (ENO), Miss Jessel The Turn of the Screw and Mrs Coyle Owen Wingrave (Toulouse), Berta Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Madame Jouvenot Adriana Lecouvreur and Nella Gianni Schicchi (ROH), Berta (Glyndebourne), Christine Intermezzo (Buxton), Sister Helen in Heggie’s Dead Man Walking (Oregon) and Foreign Princess Rusalka (Grange Park)

Jonathan Rathbone started his musical career as a chorister at Coventry Cathedral. He was a choral scholar at Christ’s College Cambridge, where he read mathematics. He gained a second degree at the Royal Academy of Music where he studied composition with John Gardner. Recently, the Academy honoured him with an ARAM

Jonathan joined the Swingle Singers in 1984 and was musical director of the group for a decade. During that time he turned from composition to arranging – creating the majority of their arrangements, both a cappella and with orchestra. He left the group in 1996 to spend more of his time writing and now spends the much of his time arranging and orchestrating. Amongst others, he has orchestrated for Katherine Jenkins, the Kings Singers, Sir Cliff Richard, Michael Ball, Stephen Cleobury and the choir of Kings College, Cambridge, and orchestras all over Europe.

He conducts five choirs in north London – London Forest Choir, The Rowantree Choir, Havering Singers, the Crofton Singers and Middlesex University Choir (where he also teaches harmony and aural). He also teaches Choral Arranging at Cambridge University.

When COVID struck, Jonathan immediately moved all his lectures and rehearsals on-line. His choirs continued to meet on Zoom, and quickly began to record new arrangements Jonathan had created especially for them to learn and record in isolation.

Since the pandemic, he has continued to write, arrange and orchestrate for a wide range of groups, creating pieces for The Hi-Lo Singers, the Edvard Grieg Kor (based in Bergen), Vocalocity (based in Israel), a student choir in Stockholm, the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in London and Coventry Cathedral.

He is married to Helen (also a former Swingle Singer) which is how they are able to produce SATB music at home for the choirs and for their local church. In one year of lockdown, they have produced over 16 hours of music. They are relieved that things are slowly returning to normal!

Jo Cole won a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music where she was a pupil of Florence Hooton and David Strange, before further study with Ralph Kirshbaum, Pierre Fournier and William Pleeth.  Her performing career of over twenty years included membership of the Academy of St Martins, co Principal Cello of the City of London Sinfonia and the Orchestra of St Johns, regular playing with the London Symphony Orchestra, numerous guest Principal and freelancing engagements throughout the UK as well as performance and recordings of chamber music and solo works. She has adjudicated competitions and given masterclasses nationally and internationally on summer courses and at distinguished institutions and uses these opportunities to share her thinking not only on cello playing but advocating that developing musicians embrace all forms of performance and the arts in order to be fulfilled and communicative artists. She is a regular external examiner in several UK conservatoires and Specialist Music Schools. She is Visiting Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and Professor of Music at the University of London. She stepped down from her role as Head of Strings at the Academy in July 2022 after twelve years, to pursue performing and writing opportunities and to dedicate more time to her work as Professor of Cello at the Academy.

Alison Moncrieff Kelly is a highly experienced cellist, teacher, ABRSM examiner and performer who also has extensive experience leading large groups of tutors in early years, junior, secondary and higher education settings. She is a versatile leader in music education, training and performance, who has performed in national and international projects at a high level.

Alison has been particularly involved with the training of talented young musicians. She has led programmes for inclusivity with children outside the mainstream musical profile, in particular in her work at Blackheath Conservatoire and Rye Arts Festival, where she set up successful outreach programmes.

Alison is an experienced ABRSM examiner, assessing classical and jazz grades, as well as diploma exams. Her work with ABRSM includes an extensive travel schedule, a variety of workshops and presentations to local teachers, as well as consultancy work for ABRSM’s syllabuses.

Paul Harris is one of the UK’s most influential music educationalists. He studied the clarinet at the Royal Academy of Music, where he won the August Manns Prize for outstanding performance in clarinet playing and where he now teaches. He is in great demand as a teacher, composer, and writer (he has written over 600 books); and his inspirational masterclasses and workshops continue to influence thousands of young musicians and teachers all over the world in both the principles and practice of musical performance and education.

©Paul Harris 2020

” His sound is lustrous; his playing is lyrical and full of feeling; he thinks not only of the passing notes but of the overall form. Moreover, O’Hora is blessed with meticulous taste – there was not a vulgar, swooning or overstated passage in the program. “ The Washington Post

The British pianist Ronan O’Hora has performed throughout the world, playing with such orchestras as the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic and English Chamber orchestras, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Hallé Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, Zurich Tonhalle, Netherlands Radio Chamber, Philharmonia Hungarica, Brno Philharmonic, Winnipeg Symphony, Florida Philharmonic and Queensland Philharmonic. He has performed in every major country in Europe as well as in the USA, Canada, Australasia and South Africa working with leading conductors such as Kees Bakels, Matthias Bamert, Hans Vonk, James Judd, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Bramwell Tovey, Hans Vonk, Edo de Waart, Takuo Yuasa and Lothar Zagrosek as well as appearing at many notable music festivals like Salzburg, Gstaad, Ravinia, Montpelier, Bath, Harrogate and Brno. Born in Manchester in 1964, Ronan O’Hora studied there at the Royal Northern College of Music with Professor Ryszard Bakst. He has won many important awards that have included the Dayas Gold Medal, the Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians and the Stefania Niekrasz Prize, which is awarded every five years to an outstanding exponent of Chopin. Broadcasts on radio and television world-wide have included a televised recital for the Chopin Society in Warsaw, a televised performance of Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto with the Netherlands Radio Symphony, two programmes of chamber music by Mozart for BBC TV, as well as over eighty concerts on BBC Radio 3. Ronan O’Hora has made highly regarded recordings on the Tring International, Virgin Classics, Dinemic and Fone labels in which he has covered concertos by Mozart, Grieg and Tchaikovsky in addition to solo piano repertoire by Schubert, Brahms, Debussy, Schumann, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Satie plus chamber music by Fauré, Britten, Debussy, Dvorak and Mozart in a discography which extends to over thirty CDs. Reviewed as its Editor’s Choice, The Gramophone Magazine wrote “ The Grieg Piano Concerto [with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under James Judd] demands imagination and great delicacy of feeling as well as bravura without barnstorming if its eternal freshness is to be caught on record. Ronan O’Hora …… uncannily invests this very beautiful recording with all these virtues, and more besides, for the performance sounds totally spontaneous even on second or third hearings … The cadenza is superb …”
Ronan O’Hora is the Head of Keyboard Studies and Head of Advanced Peformance Studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

Frank Wibaut is an International Soloist, Chamber Musician and recording/broadcasting Artist in major concert halls in over 40 countries.

With a performed repertoire of 97 concerti he has performed the Emperor piano concerto more than 500 times and has been a soloist with all the major British orchestras, BBC orchestras, Chamber orchestras and many international orchestras around the world. His recording labels include: EMI, Hyperion, Chandos, Regis, Polydor, Hugo (Hong Kong), Bongiovanni (Italy), HNH (USA), etc., with Solo, Concerto and Chamber music repertoire.

With his large solo repertoire, he also performs chamber music concerts with the world’s leading international instrumentalists and was pianist in the Dartington Piano Trio. His repertoire includes many premiers with performances in major Festivals in Japan, London, Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Venice, Prague, Brno, + France, Belgium, Austria and Australia etc.

First prizes include: Hastings Concerto Competition, London Chopin Competition Royal Overseas League and BBC Piano Competition etc.  As a much sought after teacher, he was Professor of Piano at both the Royal College of Music and Royal Academy of Music, where he became Head of Postgraduate Performance Studies. He is now a Senior Piano Tutor at the Royal Northern College of Music and Visiting Professor in several countries. His students win both national and international prizes. He also coaches internationally distinguished musicians.

Invitations as Performer/Professor include: The Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg (19 years), the Nice Summer Academy in France and Kirishima International Festival in Japan, where he is a frequent visitor.

His teachers include: Cyril Smith and John Barstow with guidance from Gordon Green, Bela Siki, Nadia Boulanger and Andre Tchaikovsky etc.

For 10 years as the first Artistic Director and Chairman of the Jury, he developed the rapid international growth of the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition. He partnered the competition with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and awarded prizes of over £32,000 + concert engagements, including the RPO.  As juror on international competitions, he was the first European invited to the Jury of the Japan Music Competition and in 2018 was a guest speaker at the first “Arlink-Argerich” world conference on International Piano Competitions, held in Barcelona.

The Royal Academy of Music in London awarded him with their highest honour, for his outstanding contribution to the RAM and to music worldwide.

Jacqueline Barron is a graduate of the Royal College of Music and began her professional career with international vocal group, The Swingle Singers. She performed the role of Christine in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre and in Ken Hill’s (original) Phantom of the Opera at the Shaftesbury Theatre. She created the role of the Princess in the world premiere of the musical Moses and played Mrs Joe in Great Expectations (Shaw Theatre). She has made many solo broadcasts for BBC Radio 2, including Friday Night is Music Night. She recorded two songs for the best selling album The Andrew Lloyd Webber Songbook with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Her track Pie Jesu has been chosen on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. Her busy concert schedule ranges from performances of Bach’s St Matthew Passion (in Spain with the Scholars Baroque Ensemble) to the BBC Proms with the John Wilson Orchestra. Recent highlights include Game of Thrones concerts at Wembley SSE Arena, performances of Stockhausen’s Stimmung (with contemporary music group ‘Sing Circle’), ‘Keep the home fires burning’ (popular songs from the first and second world wars) with the Opus One Big Band and Maria in ‘Let’s sing The Sound of Music’ at Snape Maltings). She was invited back to Snape to sing Mary in ‘Let’s sing Mary Poppins’. Over the years Jacqueline has worked with artists such as Michael Ball, Michael Crawford, Marc Almond, Gary Barlow and Bonnie Tyler and has supported both Lesley Garrett and Russell Watson on their UK tours. She regularly performs with her husband and daughter (both professional singers) in their own show: A Family Affair – Folksong to Broadway.

Jacqueline is much in demand in the recording studio, recording incidental music for TV, adverts (notably M&S Christmas campaigns and the More 4 Christmas trailer 2013) as well as more than two hundred Hollywood films (including Harry Potter, Shrek Forever After, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Hunger Games, Cinderella, Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Mary Poppins Returns). She recorded Troy in Los Angeles and sang on Nine (directed by Rob Marshall). She has recorded backing vocals for many artists, including Bjork (Hidden Place), Tony Bennett, Mika, Sarah Brightman, Kylie (Christmas) and Robbie Williams (Swings both Ways). She has recorded songs for James Horner, Eric Levi, Ennio Morricone and Debbie Wiseman. Her many TV credits include Poirot (LWT), Taggart (Scottish Television), Innocents (Channel 4), Pepys, and Midsomer Murders (ITV). Her voice is featured in the films Fade to Black and Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic (BBC), and the TV series Father Brown and Cilla (ITV). Other projects include Disney’s Beauty and the Beast film at Shepperton Studios, Aladdin and Galavant (ABC Network, USA), all for composer Alan Menken. She sang the ‘Kulning’ solos in the world concert premiere of Disney’s Frozen at the Royal Albert Hall in 2015 and subsequently reprised her role with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Birmingham Symphony Hall). Jacqueline sang at Benedict Cumberbatch and Sophie Hunter’s wedding, singing the soprano solo in Stanford’s The Bluebird as they walked down the aisle. She sang in the Queen’s 90^th birthday concert (Windsor Great Park) and was invited to Windsor Castle for afternoon tea where she was presented to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. In June 2019 she was featured in the televised BBC D Day 75 event, Portsmouth, (Andrew Sisters tribute), performing in the presence of royalty, world leaders and war veterans.

Jacqueline teaches at Mountview Academy of Performing Arts, London and at Ithaca College, New York (London Centre) where she also runs a lecture series entitled ‘Music in London’. Many of her pupils star in West End shows and on Broadway. She is a consultant and mentor for the Royal College of Music’s Creative Careers Centre, has worked as a vocal coach for the RSC and is an experienced adjudicator.

Website: www.jacquelinebarron.com