Ainsley, Anderson, Buchanan, Chest, Connolly, Davies, Murray, Whately, Martineau
Biographie Ainsley, Anderson, Buchanan, Chest, Connolly, Davies, Murray, Whately, Martineau
John Mark Ainsley
was born in Crewe and studied with Anthony Rolfe Johnson. His international concert engagements include appearances with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, including the London, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, and the London, Berlin, Vienna and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, under Claudio Abbado, Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Bernard Haitink, Sir Charles Mackerras, Kurt Masur, Sir Roger Norrington and Sir Simon Rattle. His notable engagements include Captain Vere (Billy Budd) at Glyndebourne and in Amsterdam; Skuratov (From the House of the Dead) at La Scala, Milan, under Salonen, the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin under Rattle, and the Amsterdam, Vienna and Aix-en-Provence Festivals under Boulez; the title role in L'Orfeo at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, and the Barbican, London; Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris; Grimoaldo (Rodelinda) for English National Opera; Bajazet (Tamerlano) in Versailles and at the Theater an der Wien; and the Fisherman (Le Rossignol) and Gonzalve (L’Heure espagnole) under Dutoit at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. His concert engagements include a recital at the Wigmore Hall, London; a tour of Messiah with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; and Britten’s War Requiem at the Teatro Real, Madrid. He has recorded a large variety of repertoire which includes Baroque music, German lied, English song and American musicals.
Lorna Anderson
has appeared in opera, concert and recital with major orchestras and festivals throughout Europe and elsewhere. As a renowned performer of the Baroque repertoire she has sung with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Les Arts Florissants, The Sixteen, The English Concert, St James Baroque, London Baroque, Collegium Musicum 90, The King’s Consort, London Classical Players, La Chapelle Royale and the Academy of Ancient Music, under conductors including William Christie, Harry Christophers, Richard Egarr, Trevor Pinnock, Richard Hickox, Nicholas McGegan, Robert King and Sir Charles Mackerras.
In opera she has sung Morgana (Alcina) at the Halle Handel Festival, Sevilla (La Clemenza di Tito) with the Flanders Philharmonic Orchestra, Theodora with Glyndebourne Touring Opera, Riccardo Primo at the Göttingen Festival with Nicholas McGegan, The Fairy Queen with The English Concert and Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda with Netherlands Opera. Lorna Anderson has also established an important reputation in the standard concert repertoire, having sung with the BBC Orchestras, Bach Choir, London Mozart Players, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Israel Camerata, RAI Turin (Les Noces), New World Symphony in Miami, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Washington Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain under Pierre Boulez, London Sinfonietta under Sir Simon Rattle and at the Salzburg, Edinburgh and Aldeburgh Festivals among others. She has also toured in Libya and China with the Academy of Ancient Music.
Isobel Buchanan
was born in Glasgow and won a scholarship to The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 1971. Whilst there, she attained her Diplomas for teaching and performing, won The Governors’ Recital Prize for Singing and was named Student of the Year 1974.
The following year, she auditioned for Richard Bonynge and Joan Sutherland who offered her a three year contract to sing with the Australian Opera Company in Sydney. She made her debut as Pamina in The Magic Flute to great acclaim and she went on to sing the role in many of the great opera houses of the world. Other roles with the AO included Fiordiligi, The Countess, Zerlina, Micaela, Norina, Gilda, Amelia, Helena (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Blanche (Dialogues of the Carmelites). She sang two seasons for the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Zerlina in Don Giovanni and as Adina in L’elisir d’amore with Carlo Bergonzi and later with Luciano Pavarotti, who had requested her for the role, having recorded with her in London in La Sonnambula with Joan Sutherland.
Isobel has appeared with all the major British orchestras and has travelled the world singing with conductors such as Carlos Kleiber, Georg Solti, Andrew Davis, Colin Davis, Celibidache, John Pritchard, Neville Mariner, Richard Bonynge, and Yehudi Menuhin. She has won many prizes and accolades and her recording of the Mahler 2nd Symphony with Solti was awarded the Grande Prix du Disque. She was also named Star of Scotland by public vote in 1976.
In 1981, the BBC commissioned a documentary of her work to date, directed by Michael Radford, who went on the become a well known film director. She has also had her own TV series and has appeared as a guest on other TV and radio shows, such as Face the Music and The Michael Parkinson Show.
Isobel lives in Bath, where she teaches privately. She gives masterclasses and workshops throughout the UK and acts as external examiner for the Music Colleges in London.
John Chest
winner of the prestigious 2010 Stella Maris International Vocal Competition and the Arleen Auger Prize in the 2012 Hertogenbosch International Vocal Competition, is on the verge of a major operatic career. He is a member of the ensemble at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where his roles so far have included the title role of Billy Budd in a new production by David Alden, Albert Werther, Figaro Il barbiere di Siviglia, Ford Falstaff, Papageno Die Zauberflöte and Il Conte Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro.
Career highlights to date have included role debuts as Marcello La bohème (Washington National Opera) and Fritz Die tote Stadt (Nantes and Nancy), and a return to the Aix-en-Provence Festival for Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He has also appeared as Eddie in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek (Salzburg Landestheater), Ned Keene Peter Grimes (Norwegian Opera), Il Conte Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro (Nationale Reisopera), Nardo La finta giardiniera (Aix-en-Provence), and Masetto Don Giovanni in Bari. Equally passionate about art song, Chest has given recitals at the Wigmore Hall.
Other highlights include Silvio Pagliacci (Deutsche Oper Berlin), Albert Werther at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and role debuts as Nick Carraway The Great Gatsby (Staatsoper Dresden), Valentin Faust (Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse) and the title role of Don Giovanni (Angers Nantes Opera).
Chest is a graduate of the Opera Studio at the Bayerische Staatsoper, where he sang over eighty performances. He has held apprenticeships with the Santa Fe Opera and the Chicago Opera Theater, and took part in the prestigious Merola Opera Programme. He holds a master’s degree in music from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, where he studied with David Holloway.
Dame Sarah Connolly
studied piano and singing at the Royal College of Music, of which she is now a fellow. She was made a DBE in the 2017 Birthday Honours, having previously been made a CBE in the 2010 New Year’s Honours. In 2011 she was presented with the Distinguished Musician Award by the Incorporated Society of Musicians and she was the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s 2012 Singer Award.
Renowned as one of the superlative singers of her generation she is especially regarded for the roles of Octavian, Komponist, Didon, Mozart’s Sesto, Brangaene, Fricka and Handel’s Ariodante, Serse Ruggiero and Giulio Cesare. Highlights of her operatic career include performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; La Scala, Milan; the Metropolitan Opera, New York; the Bayerische Staatsoper; Paris Opera, Wiener Staatsoper, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and the Bayreuth, Aix-en-Provence and Glyndebourne Festivals.
She has appeared in recital in London, New York, Boston, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Stuttgart and at the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and Oxford Lieder Festivals. Her Concert appearances have also taken her to the Lucerne, Salzburg, Tanglewood and Three Choirs Festivals and to the BBC Proms where, in 2009, she was a memorable guest soloist at the Last Night. Much in demand with the world’s great orchestras she is closely associated with conductors such as Bolton, Chailly, Colin Davis, Andrew Davis, Elder, Harding, Herreweghe, Jurowski, Nézet-Séguin and Rattle.
Twice nominated for a Grammy Award, she has recorded prolifically.
Malcolm Martineau
is one of the world’s greatest accompanists. He appears throughout Europe, North America, the Far East and Australasia with many of the world’s greatest singers and records widely for the major recording companies. Recording projects have included Schubert, Schumann and English song recitals with Bryn Terfel (for Deutsche Grammophon), Schubert and Strauss recitals with Simon Keenlyside (for EMI), recital records with Angela Gheorghiu and Barbara Bonney (for Decca), Magdalena Kozena (for DG) and Della Jones (for Chandos), the complete Faure songs with Sarah Walker and Tom Krause, the complete Britten Folk Songs for Hyperion and the complete Beethoven Folk Songs for Deutsche Grammophon. Other recordings include the complete Poulenc and Mendelssohn songs, Schubert with Florian Boesch, My True Love Hath My Heart with Dame Sarah Connolly, Heimlische Aufförderrung and Scene! with Christiane Karg, Portraits with Dorothea Röschmann, Reger with Sophie Bevan.
