Born and bred in Swansea, before graduating from Clare College Cambridge in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, Elin is fast coming to light as one of Wales’s leading young sopranos. In 2007 she released her début album with Universal Classics and Jazz, Eternal Light, which entered the classical charts at number two. Elin is the first singer ever to record Bach’s Alles mit Gott, a birthday ode written in 1713 and discovered in 2005. Elin made her début at the Lincoln Center New York and the San Francisco Symphony Hall with the Mozart Requiem in 2006, and the Birmingham Symphony Hall with the Fauré Requiem; and she was the subject of an S4C flyon-the-wall documentary which was nominated in the 2007 Celtic Film Festival. She first received great acclaim for her ‘Pie Jesu’ on Naxos’ awardwinning recording of the Rutter Requiem, and was praised as soloist in Bach’s St Matthew Passion at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, under Sir John Eliot Gardiner. 2007 saw her perform in Classic FM’s fifteenth birthday concert, at Songs of Praise’s ‘The Big Sing’ at the Royal Albert Hall, at the Westminster Abbey Christmas Concert; and in 2008 Elin performed the World Première of Sir John Tavener’s Requiem in Liverpool Cathedral (also recorded for EMI) and made her début at the Wigmore Hall in the role of Belinda (Dido and Aeneas) for Paul McCreesh. Elin studied as a post-graduate at the Royal College of Music, and was awarded the Ted Moss and Bertha Stach-Taylor Lieder Prize. In 2005 she was a finalist in the prestigious Joaninha Award. Future projects include the Songs of Praise Messiah special from Birmingham Town Hall; a British tour of recitals with the Academy of Ancient Music; Harvey Passion and Resurrection at the Casa de Musica, Porto; an anniversary concert for the RWCMD in Llandaff Cathedral; Mendelssohn Elijah in St David’s Hall with BBC NOW; Bach St John Passion with Stephen Layton in St John Smith’s Square; Rutter Mass for the Children in Cadogan Hall; performances in the Edinburgh Festival; and a recording of Buxtehude Membra Jesu Nostri with the Purcell Quartet

Rachael Lloyd trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and made her professional debut with Glyndebourne Touring Opera in 2005 singing the role of Shelley in the world premiere of Jonathan Lunn’s opera Tangier Tattoo. Since then she has also sung the role of Meg Page in Verdi’s Falstaff for the same company and Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare for Glyndebourne Festival Opera. As a recitalist Rachael was invited to Lille Opera house to sing Schumann’s Fraueliebe und Leben and Elgar’s Sea Pictures which she has also performed at St John’s, Smith Square in London. Recent concert performances include the alto solos in Handel’s Messiah at the Royal Festival Hall, Trois poemes de Stephane Mallarme with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and a series of Viennese concerts and Rossini’s Stabat Mater with Ulster Symphony Orchestra in Belfast. Other recent operatic highlights include Mrs Anderssen in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music at the Chatelet in Paris, Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas for Theater Thuringen in Gera, Germany, Maddalena in Verdi’s Rigoletto for Iford Arts and Amastris in Handel’s Xerxes for English Touring Opera. Last year Rachael also made her Royal Opera House debut as Kate Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madam Butterfly

Born in Glasgow, Thomas Walker studied in the brass department of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama before studying singing with Ryland Davies at the Royal College of Music and was one of the first singers to receive a Susan Chilcott Award. On the opera stage roles have included Almaviva Il Barbiere di Siviglia; the title role in Rameau’s Platée; Eurimaco The Return of Ulysses; Jenek The Makropulos Case; The Italian Tenor Der Rosenkavalier; Lindoro L’Italiana in Algeri; Pélleas; Linfea Calisto; Letchmere in Britten’s Owen Wingrave, and in concert, Chevalier Les Dialogues des Carmélites, at venues including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Stuttgart Opera; English National Opera; Scottish Opera; the Edinburgh Festival and La Monnaie, Brussels. On the concert platform Thomas has sung Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Janacek’s Otcenas and Beethoven’s Mass in C for the BBC Proms, and a wide variety of repertoire including Bach’s St Matthew and St John Passions, B Minor Mass and Magnificat; Handel’s Jephtha, Rodrigo and Messiah; Haydn’s Creation; Mozart’s La Betulia Liberata and Requiem; Meyerbeer’s Emma di Resburgo; Schubert’s Mass in E Flat; Schumann’s Paradies und die Peri, Britten’s Les Illuminations; Tippett’s A Child of our Time and Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with orchestras and ensembles including Al Ayre Espagnol; Ensemble Matheus; Northern Sinfonia; Royal and London Philharmonic Orchestras; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa. Conductors worked with have included Sir Andrew Davis, Kurt Masur, Thomas Zehetmair, Daniel Reuss, Harry Bicket, Christian Curnyn, Jean-Christophe Spinosi and René Jacobs.