The recipient of the Young Singer award at the inaugural 2013 International Opera Awards. Sophie Bevan is now at the forefront of the new generation of young British singers. A graduate of the Benjamin Britten International Opera School, she was awarded the Queen Mother Rose Bowl Award. Her concert repertoire ranges from Handel to James Macmillan and she has worked with conductors that include Sir Antonio Pappano, Edward Gardner, Laurence Cummings, Harry Bicket, Sir Neville Marriner, Phillipe Herreweghe, Sir Mark Elder, Ryan Wigglesworth, Daniel Harding and Sir Charles Mackerras. Already highly accomplished on the operatic stage, her engagements include her first Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier for English National Opera; the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen for Welsh National Opera; her first Susana Le Nozze di Figaro for Garsington Opera; Michal Saul for Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Waldvogel Siegfried, Pamina and Ilia for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Susana and Antigone Oedipe at Covent Garden; concerts with the Sao Paulo State Symphony, CBSO, and recitals at the Wigmore Hall; Pamina for the Teatro Real, Madrid; her debut at the Salzburg Festival as Beatrice in the world première of Thomas Adès’ The Exterminating Angel; Engagements this season and beyond include concerts with the Bayerische Rundfunk, Gulbenkian Orchestra, the Hallé and the CBSO. She will return to Covent Garden as Sophie in a new production of Der Rosenkavalier and as Beatriz in The Exterminating Angel. She will also create the role of Hermione in the world premiere of Ryan Wigglesworth’s A Winter’s Tale for ENO and will sing Tytania A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Aldeburgh Music. Further future engagements include a return to Teatro Real, Madrid and her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
Sophie is also the recipient of the 2010 Critics' Circle award for Exceptional Young Talent, The Times Breakthrough Award at the 2012 South Bank Sky Arts Awards and the Young Singer award at the 2013 inaugural International Opera Awards.

The Mozartists, under the dynamic leadership of conductor and artistic director Ian Page, are leading exponents of the music of Mozart and his contemporaries. Originally called Classical Opera, the company was founded in 1997, and has received widespread international acclaim for its stylish and virtuosic period-instrument orchestra, its imaginative and innovative programming, and its ability to nurture and develop world-class young artists.

The Mozartists have a prolific recording profile, and perform regularly at the UK’s leading venues, including Wigmore Hall, the Barbican, Southbank Centre and Birmingham Town Hall; they have also toured to Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Greece and the Czech Republic. Renowned for their fresh and insightful interpretations of well-known masterpieces as well as for their ability to bring rare works to light, they have mounted staged productions of many of Mozart’s operas, and have also given numerous UK premières, including Gluck’s La clemenza di Tito, Telemann’s Orpheus, Jommelli’s Il Vologeso, Haydn’s Applausus and Hasse’s Piramo e Tisbe.

In 2015 the company launched MOZART 250, a ground-breaking 27-year project exploring the chronological trajectory of Mozart’s life, works and influences. Described by The Observer as “among the most audacious classical music scheduling ever”, this flagship project presents 250thanniversary performances of most of Mozart’s important works, placing them in context alongside other significant works by Mozart’s contemporaries.

Page and his ensemble are also celebrated for their studio recordings. Their first two recordings – ‘The A-Z of Mozart Opera’ and ‘Blessed Spirit – a Gluck retrospective’ – were both selected for Gramophone’s annual Critics’ Choice, and the first seven releases in their ongoing recording cycle of the complete Mozart operas have attracted superlative reviews. Further recordings include the acclaimed 2-CD set ‘Mozart in London’ and recital discs featuring tenor Allan Clayton (‘Where’er You Walk’) and soprano Sophie Bevan (‘Perfido!’), both of which were shortlisted for the International Opera Awards. They recently released the first two volumes in a new ‘Sturm und Drang’ series.

“Conductor, instrumentalists and singers alike make sound the servant of the sense, with stylish, eloquent and dramatic music-making of the highest order.” INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW

Ian Page (conductor) is the founder, conductor and artistic director of Classical Opera, and is emerging as one of the leading British conductors of his generation. He began his musical education as a chorister at Westminster Abbey, and studied English Literature at the University of York before completing his studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London. At the start of his career he worked on the music staff at Scottish Opera, Opera Factory, Glyndebourne and the Drottningholm Slottsteater in Sweden, working with such conductors as Sir Alexander Gibson, Nicholas McGegan, Mark Wigglesworth, Ivor Bolton and Sir Charles Mackerras.

With Classical Opera he has conducted most of Mozart’s early operas, including the world première of the ‘original’ version of Mitridate, re di Ponto and a new completion of Zaide, as well as Le nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte and La clemenza di Tito. He has also conducted the UK premières of Gluck’s La clemenza di Tito, Telemann’s Orpheus and Jommelli’s Il Vologeso, as well as the first new staging for 250 years of Johann Christian Bach’s Adriano in Siria. In 2009 he made his Royal Opera House début conducting Arne’s Artaxerxes at the Linbury Studio Theatre, and his studio recording of the work was released in 2011 on Linn Records.

He devised and conducted Classical Opera’s recordings of ‘The A-Z of Mozart Opera’ (Signum Classics) and ‘Blessed Spirit – a Gluck retrospective’ (Wigmore Hall Live), both of which were selected for Gramophone magazine’s annual Critic’s Choice, and he recently embarked on an acclaimed new complete cycle of Mozart opera recordings with Classical Opera. He has also created and devised MOZART 250, Classical Opera’s ambitious 27-year journey through Mozart’s music and influences, which was launched in London in 2015.