Charlie Siem is one of today’s foremost young violinists. Born in London to a Norwegian father and British mother, he began to play the violin at the age of three after hearing a broadcast of Yehudi Menuhin playing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Siem was educated at Eton College, before reading Music as an undergraduate at Cambridge University. From 1998 to 2004 he studied with Itzhak Rashkovsky in London at the Royal College of Music, and from 2004 he has been mentored by Shlomo Mintz.

Siem has appeared with many of the world’s finest orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. He has worked with conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Yuri Simonov, Sir Roger Norrington, Edward Gardner, and Libor Pesěk.

Recent and forthcoming performances include a Norwegian recital tour with Itamar Golan, and concerto appearances with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, and Camerata Salzburg. Siem has just made his Hong Kong debut with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong (CCOHK), opening their 2015/2016 season with a critically acclaimed performance under Ken-David Masur. His festival appearances to date include Spoleto, St. Moritz, Gstaad, Bergen, Tine@Munch and the Windsor Festival.

Currently signed to Sony Classical, Siem has a varied discography, and has made a number of recordings, including with the London Symphony Orchestra (Warner Classics, 2011) and Münchner Rundfunkorchester (Sony Classical, 2014).

A great believer in giving to worthwhile causes, Siem is an ambassador of The Prince’s Trust. He is also a Visiting Professor at Leeds College of Music, making him the youngest professor in the United Kingdom. He gives masterclasses around the world – most recently at the Royal College of Music, London.

Passionate about bringing classical music to new audiences around the world, in addition to his classical performance career Siem has revived the age-old violinistic tradition of composing virtuosic variations of popular themes, which he has done alongside artists including Bryan Adams, Jamie Cullum and The Who. In 2014 he wrote his first composition – Canopy, for solo violin and string orchestra – which was commissioned by US television station CBS Watch!, and recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra. Siem has also had numerous collaborations with fashion brands including Dunhill, Armani, Boss and Dior.

Charlie Siem plays the 1735 Guarneri del Gesù violin, known as the ‘D’Egville’.

Conductor Maximilian Fane is founder and Musical Director of The New Generation Festival, and Artistic Director of the touring opera company Raucous Rossini. In 2017 summer Max conducted a tour of L'occasione fa il ladro across the UK and Italy as well as founding a new international opera festival in Florence. This festival saw performances of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Bruch's Violin Concerto at the Palazzo Corsini al Prato Gardens.

The past two years have seen Raucous Rossini perform Rossini's La cambiale di matrimonio, L'inganno felice, and Il Signor Bruschino, as well as various orchestral concerts, in the UK and Italy. Max recently also conducted L'elsir d'amore for Lyric Opera Berlin, and La Cenerentola for Kennet Opera. His recent orchestral repertoire includes: Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, Elgar's Serenade for Strings, Mozart's Coronation Mass, Beethoven's Mass in C, Schubert's Mass in G, Faure's Requiem, and Rossini's Variations for Small Orchestra and Clarinet.

Engagements in 2018 include Gluck’s Orfeo e Euridice in Florence, Piedmont and Milan, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in London, Rossini’s La Scala di Seta with Raucous Rossini, and Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and Symphony No.5 with The New Generation Festival. Max participated in the Winter International Conducting Masterclass January 2018 with Moravian Philharmonic and Maestro Alim Shakh and studies conducting with Jonathan Brett.

Max is also Artistic Director of Westbourne Music in Glasgow, a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where he studied voice and piano, and holds a Distinction Msc in Business and Management from the University of Strathclyde where he was the European Visionary Scholar and achieved a prize for his dissertation on strategy in the classical music industry. Max is very grateful to the support of Mrs Ailene Hunter.

Daniel Mirosław was born in Warsaw, Poland, and started singing at the age of 21. He is a graduate of Opera Studies at The Juilliard School in New York, where he was coached by Edith Wiens. Prior to that, he studied with Rudolf Piernay at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and with Leonard Andrzej Mróz and Urszula Kryger at the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz Academy of Music in Łódź, Poland.

In April 2018, Daniel made his debut at the Teatro Municipal de Santiago, Chile, singing the title role in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. His roles this season include Eustazio (Rinaldo) in Frankfurt, Melisso (Alcina) at the Internationale Händel Festspiele in Karlsruhe, and the title role in Don Giovanni at the Wrocław Opera House in Poland. Future engagements include his debut as Mephistopheles (Faust) in 2019, Raimondo (Lucia di Lammermoor) in 2020 and Escamillo (Carmen) in 2021.

At The Juilliard School, he performed the roles of Don Geronio (Il turco in Italia), Collatinus (The Rape of Lucretia) and Der Tod (Der Kaiser von Atlantis). He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2015 singing Don Fernando (Fidelio) and the bass solo in Beethoven’s Mass in C major. He also sang Oroe (Semiramide) at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow with Maestro Alberto Zedda and The National Russian Orchestra. In 2016, he returned to Carnegie Hall to sing the bass solo in Handel’s Messiah. He was a semi-finalist of the 2016 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

As a member of the Frankfurt Opera ensemble for the 2016/17 season, he sang Lothar (Der Sandmann), Colline (La bohème) and Panthée (Les Troyens). He also appeared at the Alte Oper Frankfurt to sing the bass solo in Mozart’s Requiem. In the summer of 2017, he performed at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, where he sang the roles of Dr. Grenvil (La traviata) and Truffaldino (Ariadne auf Naxos). During the 2017/18 season in Frankfurt, he sang Gualtiero Raleigh (Roberto Devereux), Sparafucile (Rigoletto) and Quinault (Adriana Lecouvreur).

Social Media and Online:

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Born in 1996 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Anna El-Khashem joined the Opera Studio of Munich’s Bavarian State Opera in the 2016/2017 season, where her recent and future engagements include, among others, Barbarina in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Suor Genovieffa in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, Inès in Donizetti`s La Favorite, and Xenia in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov.

In 2015, Anna made her debut at the Theatre of the Saint Petersburg State Conservatory in the role of Louisa in Prokofiev’s Betrothal in a Monastery. In 2016, she made her international debut singing the title role in Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne and the soprano solo in von Weber’s Missa Sancta (op. 76).

Anna was a 1st prize winner of the 2010 Elena Obraztsova International Competition for Young Vocalists. She is also the recipient of the 2011 Russian Ministry of Culture national scholarship and the 2013 Elena Obraztsova Charity Fund scholarship “for a bright start in the arts”. In April 2016, she received 1st prize at the Zara Dolukhanova International Art Songs Competition – Amber Nightingale in Königsberg, Russia. In February 2018, Anna won the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg, Austria and recieved a special prize for the best interpretation of a work by Mozart.

Anna has participated in masterclasses with Elena Obraztsova, Brigitte Fassbaender, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Edith Wiens, Natalie Dessay and Larissa Gergieva.

Social Media and Online:

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Roger is a producer, director and writer.

He is a co-founder of The New Generation Festival, a new opera and music festival staged for the first time in Florence in the summer of 2017. Most recently, Roger has produced international shows for the Young Vic Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Other credits, produced with Frankie Parham, include a production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing at the Rose Theatre (London, April 2018), Oliver Dench’s One-Man Hamlet (Théâtre National de Nice, 2016), DENIM (various, 2014-2016) and Waiting for Godot (Arcola Theatre, 2014).

Roger has been commissioned by Corniche Media to write a stage adaptation of the novel Samarkand by the distinguished French-Lebanese author Amin Maalouf. He has also directed Sir Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love at the Oxford Playhouse and has worked as an assistant director at both St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, under the baton of Maestro Valery Gergiev for his production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

Turkish baritone Faik Mansuroğlu was born in Hatay, Turkey in 1990. He completed his BMus degree in 2017 at Istanbul State University Conservatory of Music studying voice with Lynn Trepel Caglar. He has participated in master classes with Salvatore Fisichella, Antoine Palloc, David Gowland, Brian Dickie, Silvano Zabeo and David Walsh.

After graduating he became a soloist as a member of the ensemble at Mersin State Opera in Turkey. There in 2018 he sang the role of Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera and during the 2018/19 season his principal roles will include Belcore (L'elisir d'amore), Escamillo (Carmen) and the oratorio Carmina Burana. Earlier opera experiences include Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) at the Istanbul Sureyya Opera House in 2017 and Herr Fluth (Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor) at Istanbul Leyla Gencer Culture Center in 2016.

Faik has won the following awards: 2nd prize in Izmir, Turkey's 9th National Young Soloist Competition (student category) in 2016; in 2017 he won 2nd prize in Izmir, Turkey's 10th Professional Young Soloist Competition; in 2018 he was awarded the only full scholarship, the Dr Russell Young Memorial Scholarship, to participate in the Mediterranean Opera Studio and Festival in Caltagirone, Italy. There he furthered his vocal training with Jack LiVigni, Nelly Miricioiu and Carlos Conde in addition to singing the roles of Conte d’Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro) and Belcore (L'elisir d'amore).

Social Media and Online:

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Croatian soprano Nela Šarić graduated from Zagreb Academy of Music (prof. Cynthia Hansell-Bakić) and Wales International Academy of Voice, where she studied under renowned tenor Dennis O'Neill and soprano Nuccia Focile. She was a member of 2015 International Opera Studio in Gijon, Spain.

Nela is the winner of the 1st and the Tokyo Metropolitan Opera Foundation Special Prizes at the 2017 Riccardo Zandonai International Competition in Italy, of the 1st and the Audience Prizes at the 2017 Stuart Burrows International Voice Award in Wales, UK, and the 2nd Prize at the Otto Edelmann Singing Competition in Austria. In addition, Nela was a finalist at the prestigious International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition in Russia and the International Zinka Milanov Singing Competition in Croatia.

Recent highlights include understudying the role of Violetta Valery in La traviata at Welsh National Opera, singing Musetta in La bohème at the Sendai Music Hall and Gilda in Rigoletto at the Emerald Hall in Japan, Faure's Requiem with New York’s West Village Chorale, a gala concert celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Croatian National Theatre in Zadar, and at the Milka Trnina Award Ceremony. She has performed with all the major Croatian orchestras and widely toured Croatia performing spiritual repertoire as a member of Mystique Quartet, La-Ut Ensemble and Anime Trio. She has recorded the 19th century baroque music of composers from Zadar, produced by Edo Mičić.

Renowned industry professionals she has worked with include conductors Riccardo Muti, Lorenzo Tazzieri, Michael Conley and directors Ignacio Garcia, Sandra Martinović, Krešimir Dolenčić and Dora Ruždjak Podolski. She has also participated in masterclasses held by Raina Kabaivanska, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Annemarie Zeller, Larry Allan Smith, Benno Schollum, Mary Logan-Hastings, Helena Lazarska, Judith Kopecky and Guillermo Rozenthuler.

Nela was awarded a Coat of Arms by the City of Zadar for exemplary successes and achievements in the field of music.

Social Media and Online:

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Frankie is a producer of theatre, film and comedy and a co-founder of the New Generation Festival.
Credits include Much Ado About Nothing (Rose Theatre Kingston, 2018), DENIM (Soho Theatre / Edinburgh Fringe Festival / Glastonbury / VAULT Festival, 2014-2018), I Have A Mouth and I Will Scream by Abi Zakarian (VAULT Festival 2018), stand-up comedian Helen Duff (Edinburgh Fringe Festival / Brighton Fringe / VAULT Festival, 2015-2017), sketch comedy double-act Scene Selection (various, 2013-2017), Crocodile by Joe Eyre (VAULT Festival 2017), the UK première of Luce by JC Lee (Southwark Playhouse, 2016), Oliver Dench’s One-Man Hamlet (Théâtre National de Nice, 2016), Waiting for Godot (Arcola Theatre, 2014), Twelfth Night (UK tour, 2013), Spring Awakening (Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 2012), Hamlet (UK tour, 2011), Henry V (OUDS/Thelma Holt international tour to Tbilisi, Georgia, 2009) and Предложение (Anton Chekhov’s The Proposal performed in Russian, 2007).
He has also worked for the RSC (Revolutions season), Moscow’s Sovremennik Theatre, Cheek by Jowl, Shakespeare’s Globe (Globe to Globe season), Theatre Royal Plymouth, Sputnik Theatre Company, Whispering Beasts, Sovereign Arts, Shakespeare in Italy, Antic Face and the critically-acclaimed Oneohone Theatre Company.

Belgian/Dutch music producer living in London.
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/harold-van-lennep

Emily Edmonds’ upcoming engagements this season include Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos for Scottish Opera, Varvara in Katya Kabanova for New Zealand Opera and L'enfant in L'enfant et les Sortileges for Berlin Komische Oper.

The Australian mezzo-soprano was a member of the Pacific Opera Company Young Artists Program and joined the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the start of the 2015/16 season performing Aglaea/Atropos/Bacchus in Orpheus at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe, Alms Sister in Suor Angelica and Käthchen in Werther on the main stage and in the world première of 4.48 Psychosis at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith.

Current season roles at the ROH Covent Garden include Musician in Manon Lescaut, Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly and Tebaldo in Don Carlo, covers Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Magdalena in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Emilia in Otello, and Agathe / Dargelos in Les Enfants Terribles for The Royal Ballet.

Other operatic engagements comprise Asteria in Bajazet for Pinchgut Opera, Kate Julian in Owen Wingrave, several roles in Through the Gates and the Australian première of Into the Little Hill for Sydney Chamber Opera, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro for Opera New England and Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte for Pacific Opera.

In concert, she has sung Sea Pictures and Third Maid in Elektra with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Emily was a scholar with the Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust, holding the Dame Nellie Melba Scholarship and the Patrick and Vivian Gordon Award. She has received an Australia Council for the Arts ArtStart grant, and Australian Music Foundation and Tait memorial trust awards.

Social Media and Online:

www.emilyedmonds.com
Twitter - @emedmondssings

“Edmonds won acclaim in her native Australia before joining the JPYA Programme in 2015 and one can see why: her mezzo is full and sensuous, and she has sparkling stage presence.” - Opera Today

Lauded for her “strong presence both dramatically and musically” (The Arts Desk) and the “intriguing depth” (MusicOMH) of her portrayals, Beth Margaret Taylor is at the beginning of a promising international career. She is the current winner of the Gianni Bergamo Classical Music Award, winning 1st prize at the prestigious competition in Switzerland.

Upcoming engagements in 2019 will lead the young Scottish mezzo-soprano to the Aix-en-Provence Festival and to the Opéra de Lyon, where Beth will perform Melanto, Anfinomo and Fortuna in Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria.

Recent highlights include Arnalta in L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Longborough Festival, Rosmira in Partenope at the Iford Arts Festival, La Reine/Le Coucou/Le Chat in Respighi's La belle au bois dormant at the Opéra de Lyon, Fox/Dog/Hen in The Cunning Little Vixen at the Grimeborn Opera Festival and Olga in Eugene Onegin for Fife Opera.

Other operatic roles of her repertoire include Constanza (L’isola disabitata, Haydn), Ottone (Agrippina, Handel) Irene (Theodora, Handel), Cornelia (Giulio Cesare, Handel), Old Woman (The Day After, Dove) and Ramiro (La finta giardinera, Mozart).

Beth is a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and The Open University. She is currently refining her technique under the tutelage of Jennifer Larmore and Iain Paton. She is the holder of numerous awards and prizes including the audience prizes at the John Kerr Award for English Song and the Grandi Voci Competition in Salzburg, the Governor's Recital Prize, Lieder Prize and Scots Song Prize from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and was a semi-finalist at the International Vocal Competition ’s-Hertogenbosch. Beth has participated in masterclasses with renowned artists such as Sarah Connolly, Susan Graham, Sir Thomas Allen, Sophie Daneman and Dame Emma Kirkby.

Social Media and Online:

www.bethmtaylor.com
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Born in Bari in 1996, Domenico Pellicola began his studies at the Niccolò Piccinni Conservatoire of Bari under the guidance of maestro Domenico Colaianni. He was subsequently accepted into the Rodolfo Celletti Bel Canto Academy in Martina Franca and took part in masterclasses with virtuoso pianist Vincent Scalera. Since January 2018, he has been participating in the second edition of the Fabbrica Young Artist Programme at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome.

Domenico has given several concerts, including, on the bicentenary of the death of Giovanni Paisiello, a performance of Te Deum under the direction of Pierluigi Lippolis. As part of the Giovanni Paisiello Festival, he sang in a concert version of Nina, or the Girl Driven Mad by Love conducted by Giovanni Di Stefano and directed by Stefania Panighini.

In May 2017, Domenico made his debut as Rinuccio in Puccini’s opera Gianni Schicchi conducted by Domenico Longo and directed by Davide Garattini at the Teatro Orfeo in Taranto. He took part in the 43rd Festival of Valle D’Itria, playing the same role of Rinuccio conducted by Nikolas Naegele. He also performed in the role of Delmonte in Verdi’s Un giorno di regno conducted by Sesto Quatrini and directed by Stefania Bonfadelli. In February 2018, he sang Gastone in Verdi's La traviata conducted by Pietro Rizzo and directed by Sofia Coppola. In May 2018, he played Maintop in Britten’s Billy Budd conducted by James Conlon and directed by Deborah Warner at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. In June 2018, he took part in the Rigoletto Operacamion of the Opera di Roma, playing the role of the Duke of Mantua in Verdi’s Rigoletto.

In November 2017, Domenico was awarded the third prize and the Luciano Pavarotti award as best tenor voice at the 16th Ottavio Ziino International Opera Competition.

Nato a Bari il 12/09/1996. Inizia gli studi presso il conservatorio “N. Piccinni” di Bari sotto la guida del maestro Domenico Colaianni. Viene selezionato come allievo effetivo dell'accademia Rodolfo Celletti di Martina Franca. Nel Gennaio 2018 prenderà parte alla seconda edizione di “Fabbrica” Young Artist Program al Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.

Svolge attività concertistica. In occasione del bicentenario della morte di Giovanni Paisiello si esibisce nel Te Deum sotto la direzione di Pierluigi Lippolis. Nell’ambito del Giovanni Paisiello Festival canta come villanello nella Nina, o sia la pazza per amore sotto la direzione di Giovanni Di Stefano e la regia di Stefania Panighini. Partecipa ad una masterclass con il pianista Vincent Scalera.

Nel Maggio 2017 debutta nel ruolo di Rinuccio nell'opera di Puccini Gianni Schicchi sotto la direzione di Domenico Longo e la regia di Davide Garattini al Teatro Orfeo di Taranto. Prende parte al 43° Festival della Valle D'Itria ricoprendo nuovamente il ruolo di Rinuccio sotto la direzione di Nikolas Naegele e la regia di Davide Garattini e debuttando nel ruolo di Delmonte nell'opera Un giorno di regno di Giuseppe Verdi diretto dal maestro Sesto Quatrini e la regia di Stefania Bonfadelli. Nel Febbraio debutta nel ruolo di Gastone nell'opera di Verdi La traviata sotto la direzione di Pietro Rizzo e la regia di Sofia Coppola e nel Maggio è Maintop nell'opera Billy Budd di Benjamin Britten sotto la direzione di James Conlon e la regia di Deborah Warner presso il Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. In Giugno parteciperà al progetto "Rigoletto Operacamion" dell'Opera di Roma, nell'opera Rigoletto di Verdi in cui debutterà il ruolo del Duca di Mantova.

Nel Novembre ha vinto il terzo premio e il premio "Luciano Pavarotti" come migliore voce di tenore al "XVI Concorso Lirico Internazionale Ottavio Ziino".

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Italian conductor and pianist Jonathan Santagada has an established presence with several of the leading opera houses of Europe. He has conducted the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, the Welsh National Opera Orchestra, the Southbank Sinfonia and the Sinfonieorchester Basel, to the acclaim of audiences and critics alike. Most recently, he conducted La bohème and Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Mediterranean Opera Festival in Sicily.

Maestro Jonathan Santagada has a close relationship with the Royal Opera House and its music director, Sir Antonio Pappano, with whom he regularly collaborates.
As repétitéur, assistant conductor and stage conductor, he has worked in more than twenty Covent Garden productions assisting prestigious conductors such as Yves Abel, Maurizio Benini, Ivor Bolton, Nicola Luisotti, Andris Nelsons, Daniel Oren, Evelino Pidò and Daniele Rustioni, as well as Antonio Pappano. International singers with whom he has worked include Aleksandrs Antonenko, Malin Byström, Alessandro Corbelli, Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, Joyce DiDonato, Gerald Finley, Angela Gheorghiu, Carmen Giannattasio, Vittorio Grigolo, Bryan Hymel, Ermonela Jaho, Jonas Kaufmann, Alexsandra Kurzak, Željko Lučić, Kristine Opolais, Saimir Pirgu, Sondra Radvanovsky, Erwin Schrott, Bryn Terfel, Michael Volle, Eva-Maria Westbroek and Sonya Yoncheva.

Other companies where he has worked as repétitéur and assistant conductor are Theater Basel, where he made his professional conducting debut with Haydn’s Lo speziale, Teatro Regio Torino, Opera North, Teatro Lirico Sperimentale “A. Belli” Spoleto ,“Musica Riva” festival at Riva del Garda and Centre National d’Artistes Liriques in Marseille for concerts at the Opéra Municipale de Marseille.

He was a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House 2014-16, during which time he conducted new productions of Rossini’s La scala di seta and The Lighthouse by Peter Maxwell Davies, conducted the Southbank Sinfonia in a Beethoven concert in the Paul Hamlyn Hall and conducted extracts from Nicolai’s Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor and from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin on the main stage. He took part in the Shakespeare day on the 400th anniversary of the passing of the renowned poet in 2016, where he played live for the BBC.

Jonathan was awarded an honours degree cum laude from the Conservatorio Statale di Musica G. Verdi in Torino with Professor Mariaclara Monetti and continued his studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et danse de Lyon with Professor Géry Moutier.

He studied conducting with Marco Boemi in Rome and as a Sir John Fisher Foundation Junior Fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

Ashok Gupta is a pianist and coach with a particular interest in opera.

Ashok has worked as a répétiteur for some of Europe’s leading opera companies, including Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English National Opera and Dutch National Opera.

Ashok’s versatility as a continuo player and orchestral keyboardist has put him in demand with several leading orchestras, including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra under Ivor Bolton. With the Mozarteum Orchestra, he has appeared as fortepiano soloist in Jonathan Dove’s An Airmail Letter from Mozart, which brought together his fondness for historical instruments and contemporary music. In December this year he will play continuo with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester under their new music director, Robin Ticciati.

Ashok has won major prizes at several international competitions: he is the recipient of the Chamber Music Prize in the Bonn International Beethoven Competition, the Kerr Memorial Prize in London’s Royal Overseas League Competition, and the Accompanist’s Prize in the Kathleen Ferrier Competition.

Ashok has performed in major concert venues including Wigmore Hall in London; Symphony Hall in Birmingham; the Sage in Gateshead, and the Mozarteum in Salzburg. In July this year, he will give a solo recital at the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn. He has also performed in several international music festivals including the BBC Proms, the London Music Festival and Oxford Lieder Festival.

Ashok studied at Cambridge University, the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, receiving tuition from Margaret Fingerhut, Charles Owen and Pascal Nemerovski. He is the recipient of major grants from the Leverhulme Trust, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Leonard Hancock Memorial Foundation.

Sergey Rybin was born in the city of Tomsk in Siberia. He began playing the piano aged 7, studying at the specialised music school for gifted children, attached to the Conservatoire of Novosibirsk. Subsequently, he studied at the Moscow State University of Culture and Arts, where, after gaining a Ph.D., he became Professor of Piano and taught for four years.

Since completing his studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London (RAM) under the tutelage of Malcolm Martineau, Sergey has worked extensively for City of Birmingham Opera, English Touring Opera, Garsington Opera, Opera Holland Park and Grange Park Opera. As a recitalist, he has performed at the Leeds Lieder+ Festival, Hampstead and Highgate Festival, Beaminster Festival and in other prominent venues in the UK alongside Joan Rodgers, Justina Gringyte, Katherine Broderick, Nelly Miricioiu, Sergey Leiferkus and others.

Sergey has been elected an Associate of RAM and joined the coaching staff of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (ROH). After working as chief répétiteur on the ROH’s production of Eugene Onegin as part of the 2015/6 season, and joining the music staff team for the subsequent productions of Lucia di Lammermoor and Nabucco, Sergey returned to the ROH for the 2016/7 season productions of The Nose, Les Contes d'Hoffmann and Der Rosenkavalier. He also participated in rehearsals of Khovanschina at Welsh National Opera, performed at the Oxford Lieder Festival with Katherine Broderick and returned to the ROH again for Lucia di Lammermoor. This season, Sergey has worked on Der Rosenkavalier at Glyndebourne.

Born in Dublin, but raised in Aberdeen, Julia began piano lessons at the age of four. Studying with Denis Matthews and David Parkhouse at the North East Scotland Music School. In 1982 Julia won a scholarship to study piano at the RSAMD in Glasgow with Laurence Glover. Whilst a student at the academy, she won all the available prizes for piano solo, accompaniment and chamber music. Having gained her B.A. and completed a year of postgraduate study, Julia joined the staff of the academy as vocal coach, a post she still holds. Julia is one of the busiest accompanists in the country, appearing in recital with many distinguished artists. Concerts have taken her all over the world, with recitals in London, Tokyo and Geneva as well as appearances at the Proms, the Edinburgh Festival and Cardiff Singer of the World. She appears as orchestra pianist with the BBC SSO, the RSNO and SCO, and broadcasts and records regularly. She is music assistant to Eberhard Friedrich at the Bayreuther Festspiele in Germany.

Along with Malcolm Martineau and Tom Allen, Julia is proud to be associated with the Samling Foundation, furthering the talents of a new generation of singers.

Ralph Strehle is Lecturer and Vocal Performance Coordinator at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He holds a PhD in English from Royal Holloway University of London as well as an MA in Postmodernism, Literature and Contemporary Culture. Before embarking on a second PhD in the field of music psychology, where his current work comprises a study of motivation of RCS music students using self-determination theory and personal construct theory, Ralph completed a post-graduate degree in singing at RCS. Recognising parallels between his background in sports performance playing football at international youth level and music performance, Ralph became interested in the relationship between sports psychology and music psychology, particularly with a view to designing psychological skills training programmes. In 2012 Ralph started performance coaching, initially under the supervision of chartered sports-psychologist Peter Clark. As performance coach Ralph has worked at the National Opera Studio, the Norwegian Academy of Music, the New Generation Festival and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Ben is currently Orchestra Manager for the New Generation Festival and Raucous Rossini. Since 2015 he has been organising players for the annual tours of Raucous Rossini and last year contracted all the players for the inaugural New Generation Festival. In December 2016 Ben was appointed as Orchestra Manager for the StudentFest 2017 at the Royal Northern College of Music. In May he will also be organising the orchestra for Falkirk Festival Chorus in a performance of Verdi’s Requiem. Since graduating from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2015, Ben has held a busy freelance career. As a viola player he has played with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet and Liverpool Philharmonic. He will be completing his Masters of Music at the Royal Northern College of Music in July and is looking forward to sourcing the finest international musicians for this year's festival.

The Corsini Family, through its centuries of history, has built an exceptional cultural legacy in creating and hosting bespoke, one-of-a-kind events.

In the last five years, Lorenzo and Tommaso, two Corsini brothers, have worked hard with the ambition to further develop and innovate their family heritage. For this reason, they founded the Corsini.Events Group, a cutting-edge Event Planning and Venue Management business.

The company’s team consists of young, talented individuals, each with a specific professional area of expertise, who work in tandem on all facets of each event, guaranteeing both a seamless execution and an impeccable customer service.

Rebecca has work in stage management and technical theatre in London, nationwide and abroad for the past 4 years. Rebecca has worked at Glyndebourne Opera House and Glyndebourne Touring Opera (Plymouth Theatre Royal and Milton Keynes Theatre Royal) as an assistant stage manager on various productions such as Barry Kosky’s Saul, David McVicar’s Entfuhrung and Fiona Shaw’s Rape of Lucretia. This summer she will begin her fourth season with the company. As a freelance company / stage manager, Rebecca has toured with Lung Theatre’s E15 (Hull Truck Theatre and Battersea Arts Centre), worked with Hertford Theatre and Camberley Theatre (Little Red Riding Hood, Aladdin) and on off-west end productions including Simon Dormandy’s Luce at the Southwark Playhouse and Abi Zakarian’s I Have a Mouth and I Will Scream at VAULT Festival. This is Rebecca’s second year heading the stage management team for the New Generation Festival.