Simon read music at King’s College, Cambridge. He is a professor of piano accompaniment and a vocal repertoire coach at the Royal College of Music, London where he also co-ordinates the piano accompaniment course. He is an official accompanist for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.

Performance highlights have included an invitation from the Wigmore Hall, London to present a three concert project on the songs of Joseph Marx; a recital tour with Stéphane Degout which included the Ravinia and Edinburgh festivals; his debut at Carnegie Hall, New York with mezzo Karen Cargill and at the Frick Collection with Christopher Purves; performances of the Schubert song cycles with Mark Padmore including at the Schubertiade, Hohenhems and recitals with Angelika Kirchschlager at La Monnaie, Brussels and at the Wigmore Hall where appearances have included recitals with Christopher Maltman, Elizabeth Watts, Stephan Loges, Sophie Bevan, Sally Matthews and Lawrence Zazzo.

Vocal recordings include Warlock Songs with Andrew Kennedy, two volumes of Debussy Songs and a Strauss disc with Gillian Keith (Champs Hill Records, CHRCD018) and a disc of Mahler songs with Karen Cargill, as well as a song recital disc with Dame Felicity Palmer, and the complete songs of Jonathan Dove with Kitty Whately (Nights Not Spent Alone, also on Champs Hill Records, CHRCD125).

Kitty Whately trained at Chetham’s School of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Royal College of Music International Opera School. She won both the Kathleen Ferrier Award and the 59th Royal Overseas League Award in 2011, and was part of the prestigious Verbier Festival Academy where she appeared as Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro and in Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy. Kitty was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2013-15, during which time she recorded her debut solo album This Other Eden (Champs Hill Records), made recordings with BBC orchestras, commissioned a new song cycle by Jonathan Dove (included on this album) and made several appearances at the BBC Proms.

Opera highlights include the world premiere of Vasco Mendonca’s The House Taken Over directed by Katie Mitchell, with performances in Antwerp, Strasbourg, Luxembourg, Bruges and Lisbon; Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Stewardess in Jonathan Dove’s Flight (Opera Holland Park); Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bergen National Opera); Kate in Owen Wingrave (Opera National de Lorraine); Dorabella in Così fan tutte (English Touring Opera) and Ippolita / Pallade in Cavalli’s Elena in Montpellier and Versailles for the Aix-en-Provence Festival.

Kitty is in high demand as a concert artist and has given performances with most of the UK’s major orchestras, including Duruflé’s Requiem and Mozart’s Requiem (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra), Bach’s B Minor Mass (Royal Northern Sinfonia and Scottish Chamber Orchestra), Beethoven’s Mass in C Major (Philharmonia Orchestra), Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Ulster Orchestra), Haydn’s Nelson Mass (Britten Sinfonia on tour in Spain and the Netherlands) and Bach’s Magnificat (Britten Sinfonia and Choir of King’s College Cambridge). Further performances include Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius at St John’s Smith Square and Handel’s Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall. Kitty has given recitals at Wigmore Hall, Leighton House, and the Edinburgh, Oxford Lieder, Leeds Lieder and Buxton festivals, working regularly